Chalk and Oolites. Sect. V. Iron Sand.

137

prevail, occasionally alternating with subordinate beds of clay,loam, marie, fullers’ earth, and ochre.

The sand and sandstone are entirely siliceous, and generallycontain brown oxide of iron in a considerable proportion ; oftenindeed in such quantity as to have rendered many of its bedsw orth the w orking as an ore of that metal, while the forests ofthe county were still in a state to afford a ready supply of fuelon the spot. Hence the tracts occupied by this formation, atonce strike the eye from the brownish red aspect of their soil.Some of the sandstone beds, however, in which the iron is lessabundant, are of a yellow, and even of a light butf colour.

The texture of these sandstones is evidently mechanical;they often indeed form coarse grained conglomerates, con-sisting of pebbles (principally quartzose), from the size of apigeon’s egg to that of a pin’s head, imbedded in a ferrugino-siliceous cement; hence a regular gradation may be tracedinto a very fine-grained sandstone.*

This formation often contains (especially in Bedfordshire ,Dorsetshire , and near Hastings) a considerable quantity offossil wood, and even regular beds of wood coal. The sandsalternating with these beds also much resemble, in some places,those occurring in the great coal formation ; this is particularlythe case at Lulworth Cove in Dorsetshire , where the strata ofthis series completely assume the character of an imperfectcoal formation. These circumstances have led to expensivebut abortive attempts to procure this combustible from thesebeds near Bexhill in Sussex .

The following additional particulars are extracted from Mr.Greenough’s notes. Ferns, charred wood, and other supposedassociates of coal, occur in the white and grey sandstones ofthis series, but rarely in the ferruginous. The sinkings at Bex­ hill in Sussex , attended with so great an expense, were con-ducted in these beds. It is said that a kind of cannel coaloccurs on the banks of the stream dividing Heathfield and'Waldron parishes in the same county, extending for a quarterof a mile in beds from two to ten inches thick near the surface,

* About Horsham in Sussex this formation yields flags for pavements:at Battle Abbey the groin work which is in good preservation, is of free-stone belonging to this series ; it forms a good coping stone : near Lynn inNorfolk the iron clinkers are much esteemed as a build'ng stone, and arein common use about Tunbridge in Kent ; being little subject to injury byexposure. At Faringdon in Berkshire they are made into mill-stones.Tye want of materials however for the roads is severely felt in the Weald ofKent and Sussex , and generally wherever the ferruginous sand appears onthe surface, as the sandstone is more usually ojjta friable texture. (G.Notes.)