xliy 
PROCEEDINGS OE THE 
from aneroid measurements lie felt sure that here this was at least 
120 feet too great. 
Here and there in the course of their walk springs would he seen 
issuing from the Totternhoe Stone, which might easily he traced as 
it winds round the hills almost at their base. There was no such 
indication of the Melbourn Rock nor of the Chalk Rock, but the 
outcrop of the latter might be easily followed. The Rive Knolls 
seen on the south were just below it; a little higher, to the right 
or westward, it crops out, and it forms the top of the escarpment 
for nearly a mile; at Kens worth Hill it is capped by nearly 80 feet 
of the Upper Chalk, and it keeps near the top of the ridge until it 
recedes from view ; and finally it caps, as an outlier, the projecting 
point still further west, which is Ivinghoe Beacon. 
Klexures in the Chalk, as shown in the section on p. xliii, were 
then alluded to, and outliers of the Middle on the Lower Chalk, and 
of the Lower Chalk on the Gault, were pointed out, showing what 
a vast amount of chalk must have been removed by denudation, 
and how the Chalk hills having at one time been much higher 
than they are now, might have caused a greater rainfall in past 
ages, and therefore a greater amount of denudation. 
Mr. James Saunders, of Luton, then added some remarks about 
the Totternhoe Quarries. He said it was a curious fact that although 
the Totternhoe Stone had been known ever since Herman times as a 
building-material, yet it was not until within the last twenty years 
that the overlying Grey Chalk had been valued for the purpose of 
lime-burning. It was considered to be as good as any rock in the 
country for the production of grey lime, which was worth much 
more than white lime. The demand was so active that 18 or 20 
kilns were in almost constant use, each holding about 120 tons of 
material worth £90 to £100. It would be noted on examining the 
quarries that the Grey Chalk was of considerable thickness, probably 
over 70 feet, and that at the base it was dark grey and in massive 
blocks, passing up gradually into a much whiter condition, where it 
broke up into smaller portions. At the present time the Totternhoe 
Stone was only exposed in one or two small sections, which would 
be inspected. But whether it was to be regarded as forming two 
distinct beds, or one thick mass gradually changing in the entire 
thickness, it was certain that the lower and upper parts were litho¬ 
logically distinct, the former being the only portion adapted for 
building purposes, whilst the latter was used for making hearth¬ 
stones. The company working these quarries had orders for eighty 
thousand cubic feet of the building-stone, partly to be employed in 
the restoration (or rather re-building) of parts of St. Albans Abbey. 
Much of the bed would therefore be exposed after a time, when 
further information as to its composition might be obtained. 
Mr. Saunders then read extracts from letters he had recently 
received from Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Jukes-Browne. Mr. Whitaker 
said that westward the Totternhoe Stone dies out, and in Wilts, etc., 
the Chalk Marl cannot therefore be divided from the rest of the 
Lower Chalk, the same being the case generally in the south. Mr. 
