242 On the Agricultural Geology of the Weald. 
but these also are shown in all late impressions of the Survey 
maps, which may therefore be considered as Agricultural maps. 
The district of the Weald, in its original meaning — that of 
Wild, Wold, or Wood — comprised only the area below and 
within the Lower Greensand hills ; and where mention is made 
of the Wealds of Kent, Surrey, or Sussex, this district only is 
generally referred to. But of late years the term has acquired a 
more extended meaning, and is now often taken to include all 
the country within and below the Chalk hills. In this enlarged 
meaning the term is here used. It is very convenient to have 
a word embracing the whole of so well-defined a district ; and 
when, hereafter, the word is used in its ancient and more restricted 
sense, the fact will be sufficiently obvious. 
The Weald may be described, in general terms, as consisting 
of a central undulating region of great extent, within which 
nearly every variety of soil occurs. The beds underlying this 
tract are the lowest of the series (Hastings Beds) ; they " dip " 
or incline outwards in all directions, and pass under the next 
division or the Weald Clay, which forms a flat country passing 
all round the Hastings Beds, excepting where it, like all the other 
divisions, is cut off by the coast line. This clay passes under the 
Lower Greensand, which is always associated with rising ground,, 
and generally with a steep slope or " escarpment." The soils 
on this formation are generally light ; it passes under the Gault, 
which forms a narrow zone of clay underlying the lighter land of 
the Upper Greensand. The highest bed of the Cretaceous series, 
is the Chalk, which overlooks the inner country in a fine escarp- 
ment, passing completely round the district, broken only by 
narrow valleys through which the rivers escape. 
The crest of the Chalk escarpment is, in Kent and Surrey, 
a tolerably uniform flat, varying in height from 500 to nearly 
900 feet. In Sussex and Hants it is more varied in outline : the 
highest point is Butser Hill, south of Petersfield, 882 feet. The 
Lower Greensand country is generally of much less elevation 
than the Chalk, but in the western part of Surrey it attains the 
height of 967 feet at Leith Hill. The highest point of the central 
country is Crowborough Beacon, in Ashdown Forest, 803 feet. 
The following table exhibits the succession of the beds, in 
descending order, with their thicknesses, &c. :* — 
* The thicknesses here given are from the horizoutal sections of the Geologicall 
Survey and the sources named below. The names of the subdivisions of the Lowe 
Greensand (except the lowest), and of the Hastings Beds (also except the lowest) 
were given by Mr. F. Drew, of the Geological Survey, and have been adopted o 
the Survey Maps. Those of the Lower Greensand are taken from places on th 
Kentish Coast where they are well seen. Those of the Hastings Beds ar 
from localities within the Weald, around which the respective divisions ar 
largely developed. — (See ' Memoirs Geol. Survey,' sheet 4, and ' Quart. Journ. Geol 
Soc.,' vol. xvii., p. 271.) 
