45 
LOWER CHALK—KENT. 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE LOWER CHALK IN THE INLAND PARTS OF KENT 
AND IN SURREY. 
1. Kent. 
General Description. 
Having now given full particulars of the coast section between 
Folkestone and Dover, we shall notice some of the sections in the 
Lower Chalk along the course of its outcrop through Kent. 
So far as we can judge, its total thickness does not diminish welt- 
ward ; but there is little accurate information on this point, for, 
although it has been traversed by several borings, the published 
accounts of these do not give any certain indication of the summit 
of this division. Mr. Whitaker, however, examined some samples 
from the lower part of the boring at Chatham Dockyard (Well 
No. 1),* and from the particulars given by him the Lower Chalk 
there appears to be 191 feet thick, or only 2 feet less than at Dover. 
We may therefore assume that its several parts maintain much 
the same thickness as they exhibit in the coast section, exception 
being made in regard to the Chloritic Marl, or zone of Stauronema, 
which rapidly diminishes in thickness inland. 
The general features of the coast section are repeated inland, and 
wherever good sections 000111 ’ the descending succession is always 
found to be as follows : — 
Marl with Actinocamaxplenus - = Bed 9. 
Massive white chalk - - - =Bed8. 
Massive grey chalk - - - = Beds 6 and 7. 
Chalk marl with layers of hard chalk = Beds 2, 3, 4, and 5. 
Thin bed of glauconitic marl. 
The bed of marl at the top is everywhere conspicuous, and the 
characteristic fossil may be found in nearly every exposure of it. 
The white chalk below seems to keep about the same thickness as 
at Dover, but it is not always so sharply marked off from the grey. 
In the western part of the county it passes down gradually through 
greyish-white into grey chalk. When quarried these massive 
grey and white beds generally split into large angular blocks, but 
in the lower part the fracture is frequently conchoidal. 
The Chalk Marl does not seem to change materially in its westward 
course, but the exposures of it are few and far between. 
It will be convenient to trace the course, first of the basement 
bed, then of the Chalk Marl, and finally of the higher zones. 
* Quart. Journ. Geoi. Soc., Vol. xlii. p. 29, 1886. 
