48 
LENHAM BEDS. 
the finer particles of the clay which with every movement would 
tend to work their way downward to the base of the coarser beds, 
where, arrested by the closer-grained Chalk, they would be, as it 
were, filtered out. The Lenham section also seems to show that 
the true basement bed of the Pliocene deposit is sandy, not clayey. 
Another old pit, due north of Harrietsham and a quarter of a 
mile north-west of Deanes Hill, shows two pipes with lumps of 
ironstone, some containing flint pebbles others partially weathered 
glauconite. The ironstone is only sparingly fossiliferous. This 
pit is on the 500-foot contour, but the escarpment rises to 627 
feet within 200 yards, and it is evident that the ironstone must 
have travelled down the pipes from about that height. 
East of Lenham there occurs another Chalk pit, at about a 
mile from the village and close to the Pilgrim^s Road. This pit 
is at a height of about 550 feet. It shows pipes of red micaceous 
sand, with occasional fragments of fossiliferous ironstone. The 
sand contains a few grains of unweathered glauconite. Close to 
this pit is the highest point in the neighbourhood—680 feet. 
Nearly 2 miles east-north-east of Lenham, in a chalk-hole now 
filled up, in the field west of Warren Street, Prof. Prestwich 
found the following small section remaining, of strata which are 
in situ :— 
Ft. In. 
Yellow sand - - - - - - 1 0 
Mixed red clay and yellow sand - - - 3 0 
Seam of compact ironstone, with traces of fossils - 0 2 
Layer of small flint-pebbles - - - - 0 6 
Brown sand and clay - - - - - 1 0 
The height of this section is nearly 620 feet above the sea. 
Above the village of Charing the fossiliferous ironstones have 
again been met with, for Mr. Harris records {fide Prof. Prestwich) 
that at the depth of 6 feet was found a continuous stratum of 
fossiliferous iron-sandstone reposing on a bed of very large chalk- 
flints, externally stained with iron, and a few pieces of iron- 
sandstone. The sandstone was from 4 to 6 inches in thickness.” 
This pit also appears to be about 620 feet above the sea. 
This completes the record of the fossiliferous sections, and also 
of the sections where the beds are sufficiently well preserved to 
retain their original glauconitic character. The whole of these 
exposures occur on the edge of the escarpment above Harrietsham, 
Lenham, and Charing, in a distance of about 7 miles. 
Turning next to the similarly placed unfossiliferous outliers, it 
is at present impossible to say definitely whether they are of 
Pliocene or of Eocene age. The following notes must therefore 
be taken merely as describing such deposits as will probably, or 
may possibly, prove to be a continuation of the Diestian, not as 
now claiming them to be undoubted Pliocene strata. 
Westward towards Merstham and Guildford some of the 
outliers mapped by the Survey as Eocene may really be Pliocene, 
as suggested by Prof. Prestwich, but at present there is such an 
