GEOLOGY OF FOLKESTONE — THE GAULT. 123 



greenish-yellow mouldering cliff extends from hence towards the 

 Harbour ; great pouts and heaps of shattered clay, outslips of the 

 narrowing wedge-shaped seam of gault above, line the cliff ; while 

 forests of dank olive sea-weeds hang limp like drooping fringes over 

 ledges of rough massive rock and jutting ridges of the stony seams 

 as they outcrop through the clattering shingle, over which the foam- 

 ing waves, spurting and hissing in the cavities and caves formed by 

 the piled rocks, spatter their seething spray for the keen sea-breeze 

 to scatter like diamond drops of dew on all the damp and clammy 

 objects around. 



On the Lower Greensand we do not purpose here to dwell, except 

 to say that although from the hardness and compactness of the stone- 

 beds, the incoherent state of the sands, and the general friableness of 

 the shells, its fossils can only be obtained in a fragmentary state. 

 They are, however, highly interesting ; and any geologist who 

 wants work to do may usefully employ himself in making out the 

 stratigraphical details and zones of characteristic fossils in the strata 

 of the uppermost division which ranges along the cliff from Copt 

 Point to the Harbour, and is continued to the westward of Folke- 

 stone in the beautiful rugged cliff that scarps the high level grassy 

 platform of the Lees, on which the new and handsomest part of the 

 town of Folkestone is built. 



In such researches the smallest fragment of a shell or bone, or any 

 other fossils, has its proper value, — I never want to teach people 

 to look for pretty or fine things, but by God's blessing to do useful 

 work, — in obtaining efficient results, which should be carefully com- 

 pared with the stratigraphical range of the like fossils in the lower 

 greensand deposits on the Continent and elsewhere ; the chief value 

 of such an inquiry being to determine the relations in time of the 

 various portions of the greensand formation with each other, or their 

 synchronism with certain portions of other Cretaceous beds in differ- 

 ent localities, and to increase our knowledge of the physical circum- 

 stances under which the lowermost members of the Cretaceous 

 Formation were accumulated. 



But to return to those fallen heaps of purple gault. Damp and 

 wet with the rain and the spray, they are rich harvest-fields for the 

 geologist. Split and crack those great unshattered lumps ; cleave 



