2G2 
On the Agricultural Geology of the Weald. 
Avhich, from the earliest times, was smelted in the Weald. This 
was, at one time, the chief iron-district in England, and to the 
great extent of the trade is owing the disappearance of timber, 
which entirely covered the country. The ironworks gradually 
declined from the time of the introduction of coal. Gloucester 
Furnace, at Lamberhurst, was the last worked in the north- 
eastern parts ; it was put out at the end of the last century. 
Ashburnham Furnace, in Sussex, continued at work till the 
year 1828, 
It is to these ironworks that we owe the great number of large 
ponds which dot the country everywhere. A dam was thrown 
across a valley, and the water thus stored employed in driving 
hammers, &c. Large numbers have been drained, whilst others 
still serve as ponds for corn or other mills. 
Mael. 
Any person travelling through the Weald must have been 
struck with the vast quantity of pits, generally overgrown and 
holding water, which occur over the clayey districts ; chiefly 
where the clays border on the lighter lands. Out of these pits 
shale was got, which is locally termed " marl." At present it is 
scarcely ever dug, a general impression prevailing that the 
process is useless, and not without good reason, for the shale 
contains little or no lime or other manure. It is said to have 
been applied to light and stiff land alike ; for the latter it would 
only be equivalent to deep-ploughing, to which the true Wealden 
farmer is generally averse. On some light soils it might have 
a beneficial effect. 
The custom of " marling " is of considerable antiquity in the 
Weald. Gervase Markham, writing in 1683, says that it had 
quite gone out of use till within twenty or thirty years before that 
date, but that trees 200 or 300 years old were then growing in 
old marl-pits. This author's odd remarks may be interesting to 
some readers. " Marl is," he says,* " a fat, oyly, and unctuous 
ground, lying in the belly of the earth, which is of g. warm and 
moist temperature, and so most fertil ; seeing that heat and 
moisture be the father and mother of generation and groweth ; 
how be it, this is not a pure and simple marrow (as that which 
lieth in our bones), but a juyce or fat liquor, mingled with the 
earth, as is the fat which lieth mixed and dispersed in our flesh, 
so as the one may be drawn away, and the other remain as it 
shall anon appear unto you, 
"Pour sorts of marie be found in this Weald, known asunder 
• • The Enrichment of the Weald of Kent,' p. .5. 4to. London, 
