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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924004550723 
 
MEMOIES OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURYEY. 
 
 ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 GUIDE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GEOLOGY OF LOJ^fUQ^T 
 
 AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. ' ' ' 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WHITAKEE, B.A., E.R.S., 
 
 F.G.S., Assoc. Ikst. CB. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 jPlillMSHED BY ORDEK Of THE LOKDS COMMISSIONEKS OF HER MAJESTY'S TBEASUBY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOE HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, 
 
 BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, 
 
 FBIITTEBS TO THE QITEEir'S HOST EXCEI/LEKT MAJESTY 
 
 And to be purcha^d, either directly or through any BookKeller, ftom 
 
 EYRE AlTD SPOTTISWOODE, East Hahdihs Street, Fxkei Stkeet, B.C. j or 
 
 ADAM AND CHAB.LES. BLACK, 6, NoEiH Bkid&e, EDiHBrEaH; or 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., 104, Graptok Steebt, Dubub 
 
 1889. 
 
 Price One Shilling. 
 
LIST OF MAPS, SECTIONS, AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 
 
 tlltB Kaps are tjjoseof the Ordnance Survey, gesloj^cally coloured by the Geological Surrey of the United Kingdom, nndei 
 
 the Superinteniiuiiuu uf AscH, Geikie, Lli.D., F.B;.S., Pirector General. 
 (For Haps, Sections, and Memoirs illustrating Seotland, Irelund, and ihe West Indies, and for full particulars of allpuUica' 
 .. tions, see " Catalogue," Price 1».) 
 
 ENGtAND AND WALES.-(Scaleone-iiichtoamile.) 
 Maps marked * are also published as Drift Maps. Those marked fare published only as Drift MapE. ^.■'. 
 Sheets S*, 5, 6»-, 7*, 8*, 9, 11 to 22,35, 28, 30, SI. 33 ft) 37, «, 11, 44, 47*, 64*, 65t, 69t, 70», 83', 86*, price 8». M. each. . . ' . -i 
 Shi!et4,6s. Sheet9 2», 10,as, Z4,27to29,S2,3S,S9,58, 84t, 85t, 4*. each. I. of Wight (New Series), 6». 
 Sheets, divided into q'uarters.; all at Ss: each quarter-sheet, excepting those in brackets, which are 1«. 6^2, each. ■ ■- ' 
 1', 42, 43, 45, 46, NW; SW, NB», SB, 48, NWt, S W*. NUt, CSfB*). (49tJ, 50t, 61', 52 to 57. (57 N W), 59 to 63; 88 SWt NEt, 
 .WW*, SBt, 67 Nt,- (St), 68 -Et. (NW), SWt, 71 to, 75, 76 . (N) S, (77 N), 78, 79, NW», S W,NE*, SE', 80NW*i 8W», NB. 
 SB, SlNW'.SW, NE,SE, 82, 88»,«7, 88, NW,SW,NE, SB, 89-NW*, SW*, NB, SB*, 90(NB*),(SE*),91, (irW*),{8W*),NE*, 
 . SB*, 92 SW*, NE, SE, 93 NW, SW, NE*, SB*, 94 NWt, SWt, (UBt), SEt, 95 NW*, NB*, (SE*1, 96*, 97 NW% SW|.NB*, 
 , SB, 98 NW, SW, NE*, SE, 99 (NB*), (SB*), 101 SB. 102 NB*, lOS*, 104*, 105 NW, SW, (NE*), SB, 106 NW*, HE* SB* lOT 
 ■fiWt.NE*, SE*. 108 SW*, NB*, SB*, 109 SW, SB*, 110 (NW*), (NB*), SW*. 
 
 ,, . aoxizon-xAK sbctioivs, vskticail sbctzovb, 
 
 ' 1 tu 139, England, price 5s. each. 1 to 78, JSngland, price S«.6<f. each. 
 
 COniPXETEB COUH'TZES OF EXTCXAVD AWS WAKES, on a Scale of one-inch to a Mile. 
 
 Sheets marked * have Descriptive Memoirs. Sheets or Counties marked t are illustrated by General Memoirs. 
 
 ANGLESE^t,— 77lf,78. Hoiygect.40. 
 
 BBDFOB,DSHIEE,— 46 NW,NE, SWt, SEt, 52 NW, NB, SW. SE. , 
 B^BESHIEE,— 7*, 8t, 12*, 13*, 34*, 45 SW*. Hor. Sect. 59, 71, 72, 80. 
 
 BEECKNCfclfeSHIBEt,— 86, 41, 42, 56 NW, SW, 57 NB, SE. Hor. Sect. 4, 5, 6, 11, and Vert. Sect. 4 and 10. 
 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,— 7* IS* 46* NE, SE, 46 NW, SWt, 52 SW. Hor. Sect. 74, 79. 
 
 CABliMAETHENSHIEBt,S7, 38, 40, 41, 42 NW, SW, 56 SW, 57 SW, SE. Hor. Sect. 2-4,7,8 ; and Vert. Beet. S-6 IS 14. 
 CAEBNAEVONSHIEE.t— 74NW, 76, 76, 77 N, 78, 79 NW, SW. Hor. Sect. 28, SI, 40. 
 OAMBBIDGBSHIRE,t-46 NB, 47*. 51*, 62 SB, 64*. 
 
 CAEDIGANSHIREt,— 40, 41, 56 NW, 67, 58, 59 SE, 60 SW. Hor. Sect. 4, 5, 6. 
 
 CHBSHIEB,— 73NE, NW, 79 NE.^E, 80, 81 NW*, SW*, 88 SW. Hor. Sect. 18. 43, 44, 60, 64 65 67 70 
 COENWALLt,— 24t, 26t, 26t, 29t, 30t, Sit, 33t, & 33t. 
 
 DEHBIGHt,-78NW,74,75NE,78NB,SE.79NW,SW,SB,8DSW. Hor.Seot.31,So, 38, 39,43, 44- andVert Sect 24 
 DERBYSHIEEt,-e3 NE, 63 NW, 71 NW, SW, SE, 73 NE, SE, 81, 82, 88 SW, SB. Hor. Sect. 18, 46 60 61 69 70 ' ' 
 DEVONSHIEEt,-20t, 21t, 2at, 23t 34t, 25t, 26t,&27t. Hor. Sect. 19. ', ' ' 
 
 DOESBTSHIEE,— 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23. Hor. Sect. 19, 20, 21, 22, 56. Vert. Sect. 22, 
 ESSEX,— 1*, 2*, 47*, 48. Hor. Sect. 84, 12(). 
 FLINTSHIEEt,-74 NE, 79, Hor. Sect. 43. 
 
 GLAMC)EGANSHIEBt,-20, 38, 37, 41, & 42 SE, SW. Hor. Sect. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ; Vert. Sect 2 4 5 6 7 9 in i7 
 GL0lJCESTERSHIEE,-19, 34*, 35, 48 NE, SW, SB, 44*. Hor. Sect. 12 to 16, 59; Vert. Sect '? 'll' 16 is tn Bi 
 HAMPSHIEE,-8t, 9t, 10*. lit, 12M4, 16, 16. Hor. Sect. 80. •'"«./, u, is, 4* to 51. 
 
 HEEEFOEDSHIEE,-42 NE, SB, 43, 56, 66 NE, SB. Hor. Sect. 6, 13, 27, SO, 34 ; and Vert Sect 15 
 HEETFOEDSHIEB,-ltNW,7*,46,47*. Hor. Sect.- 79, 120 121 • ' oi-"..id. 
 
 HUNTINGDON,— 61 NW, 52 N W, NE, SW, 64*, 65. 
 KENTt.— It SW & SB, 2t, St. 4*. 6t. Hor. Sect. 77 and 78. 
 
 LANCASHIEE,-79NE,80NW*,NE,81NW,88NW,SWt,89,9D,91,93SW,"98. H.S.62to68 S3 to 87 V S w <!^ «, 
 LEICESTEBSHIEE,-53 NB, 62 NE, 68*. 64*, 70*, 71 SE, SW. Hor. Sect. 46 Z. 49 62 12' miM ' ' ^• 
 
 LINCOLNSHpiBt,-64*, 65, 69, 70*, 83*, 84', 85*, 86*. 
 
 MBEIONETHSHIREt.-59NB,SE,60NW, 74,75NB, SE. Hor. Sect. 26, 28, 29, SI 32 36 37 S8 qo 
 MIDDLBSEXt,-JtNW,SW,7*, 8t. Hor. Sect. 79. •-=>>.-!». ^». si. s^, S5, S7, 38, 39. 
 
 MONMOUTHSHIEE,-S5, 36, 42 SE,NE, 43 SW. Hof.' Sect: 6 and 12: and Vert Sect 8 9 in 1 a 
 MONTGOMEE7SHIEEt,-66 NW, 59 NE, SE. 60,^74- SW SE. Hor. Sect 86, 37 29 3^82 84 V ie « ' 
 NOEFOLKt,-50 NW*, NE*, 64*, 65», 66*, 67, 68* 69 * ' ^' '*' 
 
 NOETHAMPTONSHIRB,-64, 45 NW, NB, 46'nW; 6?; NW, NB, SW, 53 NB SW & SB 63 SE Bi 
 NOTTINGHAM.-70*, 71* NE, SE, NW, 82 NE*, SE*, sW, 83, 86, 87* SW. Hor SecT 60 61 ' 
 OXF0EDSHIEE,-7*, 13*, 34*, 44*, 46*, 63 SB*. SW. Hor! Sect 71. 72, 8^82. 
 PEMBE0KESHIEEt,-S8, 39, 40, 41, 58. Hor. Sect, land 2 ; and Vert. Sect. 12 and 13 
 EADNOESHIRE,-42 NW, NE, 66. 60 SW, SB. Hor. Sect. 6, 6 27 - 
 
 EUTLANDSHIEEt,-this county is wholly included within Sheet 64.* 
 SaEOP8HIEB,-66 NW, NE, 66 NE, 60 NE, SE, 61, 62 NW 78 74 NB ST? tt„, a. t „. »- 
 
 45, 68, 64, 58; and Vert. Sect. 23, 24. ' ' • ' '*•'*• ^°^' ^^°^- 2*. 2S, SO, 33. S4. 36. 41 4^ 
 
 S0MEESETSHIEE,-18, 19, 20, 21,. 27, 85. Hor. Sect. 15, 16, 17, 20. 21, S2 ■ and Vert Sect la .jr « >o . 
 STAFFOEDSHIEE,-54 NW, 66 NB, 61 NB, SE, 62, 63 nV 71 SW 72 M Ne'sp «, «d tV' ^' **' ""•"• 
 
 24, 25, 41, 42, 46, 49, 54, 57, 61, 60 : 'and Vert. Sect. 16; 17, 18,' 19, 20 21 28 2^' ' ®^' ®^' S<"- Sect. 18, 23. 
 SUFrOLK,-47,*48,*49,50,51,66SE*,67. .^^.^o.za. 
 
 SUEEET,-! SWt, 6:t, 7*, 8t, 12t. Hor. Sect. 74, 76, 76, and 79 
 SUSSEX,-4*, 5t, 6t, 8t, 9t, lit. Hor. Sect. 78, 76, 76, 77, 78 
 
 WAEWICKSHIEII,-44*,46NW, 53*, 54, 62 NE, SW, SE,63NW SW STc II„- «».» », ,. 
 W1LTSHIEE,-12., 13*, 14, 16, 18, 19, 34*, and 36. Hor Sect iTan^Ti '"' *" '" " ' ^«''- ^'^^ ^^^ 
 
 WOECBSTE11SHIEE.-43 NB,'44*, 54, 55, 62 SW, SB. 61 SE. Hor.Sect.lS, 23,26.60, 69, and Vert Sect 16 
 
 aEMEBAl inEiaOIBS OP THE CEOlOOICAli STOVEV 
 EBPORT on COENWALl, DEVON, and WEST SOMERSET. By Sir H T De T » Bb^^ ■.. L 
 FIGURES and DESCRIPTIONS of the PALiEOZOIC FOSSILS in tl,'«v: ,^ ^*'™- ^**- '<0-P-) 
 The MEMOIRS of the GEOLOGICAL SUEVEyTf G^AT SrITAIN Vof Hl^^vS' tt ?-^ ^'.°'- ^«"«''- (O.P.> 
 N. WALES. By SiK A. C. RamsJlT. App., by J. W. Salter mdRVTu^^;i.ht'/^\- ^^- ^" ^ P"'s),42,. 
 LONDON BASIN. PtI. Chalks Joene of S.rw.Ws'ByVC™E 18^ fv wf °,';,"'-'"^'»°'".*«-) 
 Guide to ttie GEOLOGY of LONDON and the NEIGHBOURHOOD Bv W wl,t', il I^. ofMemoirs, &c.) (O.K> 
 TEETIAkT FLUVIO.MARINB FORMATION of the ISLE o7 WIGHT Z'y Tnw A 'S' '"^ ^'^■ 
 The ISLE'OF WIGHT. -By H.W.BEISIOW. New Ed. b/c.-Reid and A SikThak "''"'''• '*• 
 
MEMOIRS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SUEYEY. 
 
 ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 GUIDE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GEOLOGY OE LONDON 
 
 \ AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
 
 WILLIAM WHITAKEE, B.A., F.R.S., 
 
 F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 PliriLISHED BY OBDER OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS 0¥ IIER MAJESTY'S TREASURY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 FEINTED FOE HEE MAJESTY'S STATIONEET OFFICE, 
 
 BY EYEE AND SPOTTISWOODB, 
 
 PBIirlEBB TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCEIiLENT MAJESTY, 
 
 And to be purchased, either directly or throaj;h any Bookseller, from 
 
 BYRE AND SPOTTISWOODB, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, E.G. ; or 
 
 ADAM AND CHAELES BLACK, 6, North Bridoe, Bdinburoh ; or 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., 10*, Grapton Street, Dublin. 
 
 1889. 
 Price One Shilling. 
 
NOTICE. 
 
 The late Sir Epderiok Murchison, Director General of the Geo- 
 logical Survey, decided that a geries of maps should be pre- 
 pared and published in illustration of the nature and distribution 
 of the superficial deposits, the variations of which have such 
 important bearings on the progress of agriculture. Among 
 the earliest maps published in pursuance of this plan is the large 
 sheet "London and its Environs," on the scale of one inch to a 
 mile, of v^hich the present Guide forms a general explanation. 
 
 The mapping of this large district was the work of Messrs. 
 Bristow, Whitaker, Polwhele, Trench, Dawkins, Woodward, 
 Penning, Bennett, Ussher, Blake, and Hawkins, some of whom, 
 however, left the Geological Survey before the completion of the 
 
 work. ' 
 
 The construction of the large Geological Model of London and 
 its Neighbourhood, to which this Guide also refers, was due to 
 the representations of the late Mr. Trenham Reeks, the Curator 
 of the Museum, who urged the value of such a model with regard 
 to the practical applications of Geology. 
 
 The first edition of the Guide was published in 1875. The 
 
 continued demand for the work, shown by the necessity for a 
 
 fifth edition, may be taken as a proof that it has fulfilled the 
 design with which it was written. 
 
 The work has now been brought up to date, recent well-borings 
 having furnished much additional information regarding the pre- 
 Cretaceous rocks underneath London. 
 
 ARCH. GEIKIE, 
 Geological Survey Office, Director General. 
 
 London. 
 November 1889. 
 
Vll 
 
 LIST 
 
 OF 
 
 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PUBLICATIONS 
 
 RELATING TO THE 
 
 NEIGHBOURHOOD OF LONDON. 
 
 £ 
 
 Map ; scale an inch to a mile. 
 
 London and its Environs (made up from other Sheets, see 
 p. 1), without the Drift Beds (1873), Price, 22s. ; with the Drift 
 (1874), Price, 30s. 
 
 Sections (" Horizontal ") ; scale 6 inches to a mile. 
 Price, 5s. each. 
 
 Sheet 74 (Part). Through Virginia Water, Windsor, Stoke 
 Poges, and Hedgerley. 1868. 
 
 Sheet 75 (Northern end). From E. of Cobham, through 
 Esher to Hampton. 1868? 
 
 Sheet 79. From Beddington, through London (from Clapham 
 Common to Hampstead), Hendon, Elstree,and Aldenham. 1868. 
 
 Sheet 120. From S.E. of Famingham, Kent, across the Valley 
 of the Tliames below Greenhithe, across Warley Common, 
 Epping Plain, &c. 1877. 
 
 Memoirs. 
 
 (On Sheet 7.) The Geology of Parts of Middlesex, Hertford- 
 shire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Surrey. 1884^ Pp. vi. 
 112. Price, 2s. (Out of Print.) Absorbed in " The Geology 
 of London, &c." 
 
 Vol. IV. The Geology of the London Basin. Part 1. The 
 Chalk and the Eocene Beds of the Southern and Western Tracts. 
 1872. Pp. xii. 619. Price, 13s. (Out of Print.) Partly 
 absorbed in " The Geology of London." 
 
 Guide to the Geology of London and the Neighbourhood. 
 1875. Pp. xii. 72, and Ed. 2, Pp. xii. 73. Ed. 3. 1880. Pp. 
 xii. 52. Ed. 4, 1884. Pp. x. 89; 2 plates. Price, Is. 
 
VIU 
 
 The Geology of London and of Part of the Thames Valley. 
 Vol. i. DescriDtive Geology. Pp. xii, 556, folding table. Price, 
 6*. Vol. ii. Appendices. Pp. iv. 352. Price, 5s. 1889. 
 
 To this work the reader is referred for details of the Geology of 
 the London District. 
 
 The following is a summary of its contents, the figures standing 
 for pages : — 
 
 Vol. i. Introduction, 1-9. Underground Plain of Older 
 Eocks, 10-50. Cretaceous Beds (below the Chalk), 51-56. 
 Chalk, 57-85. Lower London Tertiaries (General Remarks, 
 86-102 ; Thanet Sand, 103-121 ; Woolwich and Reading Beds, 
 122-213 ; Blackheath Beds, 214-237). London Clay, 238-265. 
 Lower Bagshot Beds, 266-280. Deposits of Doubtful Age, 281- 
 298. Glacial Drift, 299-327. River Drift, 328-453. Alluvium 
 &c., 454-480. Physical Geology, 481-499. Economic Geology, 
 500-516. Petrological, Mineralogical, and Chemical, 517-533. 
 Supplement, 534-537. Index, 539-556. 
 
 Vol. ii. Well-sections (Berks., 3-6 ; Bucks., 7-11 ; Essex, 12- 
 42 ; Herts., 43-58 ; Kent, 59-78 ; Middlesex, 79-182 ; Surrey, 
 183-239). Trial-borings (Metropolitan Board of "Works, 240-275 ; 
 Miscellaneous, 276-313). Sections in London and the Neighbour- 
 hood, 314-333. Supplement, 334-339. Index, 341-352. 
 
IX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The object of the following pages is to give a general 
 account of the geology of London and the surrounding 
 country, trithout entering into particulars of the various 
 sections and other details, which have been already 
 published by the G-eological Survey. 
 
 Originally planned as an illustration of the Geological 
 Model of London (in the Museum at Jermyn Street) 
 which was constructed under my superintendence during 
 the years 1872 and 1873, this sketch has been extended 
 so as to form a general explanation of the large Map of 
 " London and its Environs " published by the Geological 
 Survey. 
 
 Though the accumulated knowledge of many observers 
 is drawn upon, yet references to authors who have written 
 on the geology of the district have been avoided, having 
 been fully given elsewhere {The Geology of London, 
 see p. vi.), and it being undesirable to burden a sketch 
 such as this with foot-notes. 
 
 The aim of this essay is, in fact, to give persons 
 interested in the subject a short account of all the beds 
 that occur in and near the metropolitan area, leaving 
 those who may wish to study them thoroughly, or may 
 want detailed information on particular subjects, to 
 refer to more elaborate works. This will serve, there- 
 fore, as an introduction to the severer study of London 
 
 tJ 60515. \i 
 
geology, and may be taken as a summary thereof by 
 those who have neither time nor wish to make one for 
 themselves. 
 
 The chief points in which this edition differs from 
 the last are in the section on the Eange of Old Eocks 
 ■underground, in which there are additions and an 
 enlargement of the table, and in the addition of the 
 Harefield section to the plate at the end. 
 
 William Whitaker. 
 Geological Survey Office, 
 November 1889. 
 
XI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I' All 10 
 
 Feontispiece, — Section across the Lokdon Basin - - iii 
 
 Notice bt the Director Generai, - - - . v 
 
 List of Geological Survey Publications relating to the 
 
 Neighbourhood op London - - - - vii 
 
 Preface ...._- - ix 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 Ihtroduction. 
 
 1. The Geological Map of " London and its Environs " - - I 
 
 2. Geological Formations of the District and their general 
 
 relations to one another (with Tabular list) - - - 2 
 
 3. The Geological Model of London, General Description. 
 
 Construction. Description of the Sections - .5 
 
 CHAPTER 2. 
 
 Cretaceous (and older) Beds. 
 
 1. Range of Old Rocks underground (with Tabular Abstract 
 
 Account of Borings through the Chalk in the London Basin) 16 
 
 2. Gault - " - . . . - 24 
 
 3. Upper Gireensand - . - - - 24 
 
 4. Chalk. Composition and Origin. Flints. Water. Features 
 
 and Scenery. Sections - - - - - 25 
 
 CHAPTER 3. 
 
 Eocene Tertiary Formations. Lower London Tertiaeies. 
 
 1. General Description - - - - 32 
 
 2. Thanet Beds. Structure and Range. Sections (with 
 
 Tabular List) - . . - - 35 
 
 3. Woolwich and Reading Beds. Range. Structure and 
 
 Fossils, Sections (with Tabular List) - - - 38 
 
 4. Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds. Structure, Range, and 
 
 Fossils. Sections (with Tabular List) - - - 42 
 
 5. Features and Scenery ... - 45 
 
 CHAPTER 4. 
 
 Eocene Tertiary Formations {continued). 
 
 1. London Clay. Structure and Fossils. Range and Features. 
 
 Sections (with Tabular List) - - - - 48 
 
 2. Bagshot Beds. Structure and Range. Lower Sand and 
 
 Pebble-bed. Bracklesham Beds. Upper Sand. Features. 
 Sections (Tabular List) - - - - 53 
 
CHAPTER 5. 
 
 Dbift Series. Glacial and Doubtful. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. General Eemarks - - - - - - 57 
 
 2. Pre-Glacial (?) Pebble-Gravel - - - - 58 
 
 3. Glacial Drift. Gravel, Sand and Clay. Boulder Clay. 
 
 Sections (with Tabular List) - - - - 60 
 
 4. Beds of Doubtful Age. Plateau (or Hill) Gravel. Clay-with- 
 
 flints. Brickearth (of the Chalk-tract) - - 66 
 
 CHAPTER 6. 
 
 Post-Glacial Beds. 
 
 1. River Drifts. Conditions under which they were formed. 
 
 Gravel and Sa^nd. Brickearth. Fossils. Tlint Imple- 
 ments. Sections (with Tabular List) - - - 69 
 
 2. Modern Eiver-depOsits - - - - - 77 
 
 3. Made Ground - - - - 79 
 
 CHAPTER 7. 
 
 Causes that have brought about the present Features 
 OP the District. 
 
 1. Disturbances of the Beds and their Results - - - 80 
 
 2. Denudation, its Nature and Eifects - - 81 
 
 3. Formation of the Valley of the Thames - - 83 
 
 Appendix. Sections of the Lower London Tertiaries (with 
 
 folding plate) - ' - . - 85 
 
 Index or Places - - - - . - 87 
 
CHAPTER 1. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. The Gtbological Map of "London and its 
 Environs." 
 
 Tlie London Sheet of the Geological Survey Map, 
 which was published at the close of 1873, the Drift 
 being added in 1874, is of larger size than any other 
 sheet, and represents an area of 1,111 square miles, 42f 
 miles from east to west, and 26 miles from "north to 
 south, on the scale of an inch to a mile. This sheet was 
 made by the Ordnance Survey, by a combination from 
 seven separate plates, in order to get a map with London 
 in the centre. Thege component plates are as follows : — 
 
 Sheet 1, S.W. the whole. 
 
 ,, 1, S.E. the north-eastern corner. 
 
 „ 1, N.W. the southern part. 
 
 „ 1, N.E. the south-western corner. 
 
 „ 6, the western and central part of the northern 
 
 edge. 
 ,, 7, all but the northern and western parts. 
 „ 8, the eastern and central part of the northern 
 edge. 
 
 The London Sheet also enters into seven counties : — 
 
 1, Berkshire (Windsor) ; 2, BucMnghamshire (Arder- 
 sham, Oolnbrook, and Eton) ; 3, Essex (Barking, Brent- 
 wood, Romford, and Waltham Abbey) ; 4, Hertfordshire 
 (Bamet, Rickmansworth, and Watford) ; 5, Kent 
 (Bromley, Dartford, Grravesend, Greenwich, and Wool- 
 wich) ; 6, almost the whole of Middlesex, of which 
 county, indeed, only a small northern point is beyond the 
 limits of the Map; and 7, Surrey (Ohertsey, Croydon, 
 Epsom, Kingston, and Richmond). 
 
 The valley of the Thames, from Windsor on the west 
 to Gravesend on the east, is represented on this Map, 
 and also the valleys of the following tributary streams, 
 
 U 60515. . 
 
Z GEOLOGICAL MAP. 
 
 to a greater or less extent : — On the north of the Thames 
 the Golne (with its affluents, the Mishourv. and the 
 Chess), the Brent, the Lea, and the Boding ; and on the 
 south of the Thames, a little of the Wey, a little of the 
 Mole, the Wandle, the Bavenslourne, and the Dart, with 
 its affluent the Gray. 
 
 A large map of London, on the scale of six inches to 
 a mile, was coloured geologically in 1876, and hung up 
 in the Jermyn Street Museum. It covers almost exactly 
 the same ground as the Model, being a trifle larger 
 southward ; and the same colours have been used in 
 both. The list of formations and the description of the 
 Model therefore (pp. 4, &c.) make it needless to say 
 more of this map. In 1878 Mr. Stanford published a 
 similar geological map, which was compiled by Mr. J. 
 B. Jordan. 
 
 2. GrEOLOGICAL POEMATIONS OF THE DISTRICT AND 
 THEIR GENERAL RELATIONS TO ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 From the accompanying list of the Geological Forma- 
 tions of the district (p. 4), it will be seen that all do not 
 occur in the model, but some on the map only ; whilst 
 some are shown only at a great depth in the sections 
 of the model, and others, which have been found in deep 
 borings, are not to be seen on the model, the borings 
 being of later date. They will be described in chrono- 
 logical order as far as possible, that is .beginning with 
 the oldest or lowest, although in the table they are 
 arranged in descending order, except for some surface- 
 deposits of doubtful, and perhaps varying, age. 
 
 It will be seen that of these all but the Chalk and the 
 beds below (which latter do not come to the surface any- 
 where in the district), belong to two divisions of the last 
 or newest of the three great groups of sedimentary rocks, 
 the Tertiary group, as it is called. The lowest of these 
 divisions, known as the Eocene, or older Tertiary beds, 
 is well represented in the London Basin, of which great 
 geological tract, the district nov to be described is a 
 part. The succeeding divisions of the Tertiary beds, 
 however, the Miocene and the Pliocene, are entirely un- 
 represented, either through not having been deposited 
 in this area, or from having been swept away by 
 denudation; and the next deposits are of later age, 
 
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 3 
 
 consisting of various members of the Post Pliocene, or 
 Drift Series, wliich. rest indifferently on the various older 
 formations, and occur in a less orderly and constant 
 way than these latter, although not without distinct local 
 order. 
 
 The term London Basin was given to the tract in 
 question from the more or less basin- or trough- shaped 
 arrangement into which the beds have been thrown ; 
 but without some caution it may lead to misunder- 
 standing, and therefore it may be as well at once to 
 state - that the basin or trough is of the shallowest de- 
 scription, comparatively to its large length and breadth, 
 and that it bears no resemblance to the ' familiar basin 
 or trough, the general inward dip of the beds being 
 very small. Another far more erroneous idea is some- 
 times held, even now I fear, from diagrammatic sections 
 giving the Tertiary beds the appearance of having been 
 deposited in a basin or hollow Cut out in the Chalk ; this 
 should be clearly and wholly got rid of, for the slight 
 trough has been caused by disturbance that affects the 
 Chalk equally with the Tertiary beds, which latter, 
 moreover, do not lie in an eroded hollow, except perhaps 
 locally. It should be noticed also that the so-called 
 basin is of an irregular shape. 
 
 In the section {Frontispiece) the Chalk under London 
 is shown as thinner than at the northern outcrop, which 
 seems to favour the idea of erosion ; but this southerly 
 thinning may be owing to a certain extent to the 
 thinning of lower as much as to the erosion of higher 
 beds. Moreover, the whole of the Chalk shown was once 
 covered by Tertiary beds, which, before the disturbing 
 forces brought about the trough- Ihaped arrangement, 
 spread far beyond the tract shown in the section ; so 
 that even should there have been erosion of the Chalk 
 before the deposition of the Tertiary beds (as has been 
 inferred from the fossils of the higher Chalk near 
 London, which are said to differ from those of the 
 highest Chalk in England), that erosion is merely local 
 and in no way affects the question of the basin resulting 
 from disturbance. 
 
 A 2 
 
4: 
 
 GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 
 TAst of Geological Formations and Divisions. 
 
 
 
 Divisions that have a distinct 
 Colour on the Map and Model. 
 
 Prohable 
 greatest - 
 
 
 Thickness in 
 the District. 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 Becent 
 
 '■Old Kiver Drift, f 
 Post Glacial. \ 
 
 Surface-deposits on ( 
 the Chalk-tract(of <^ 
 doubtful age). (_ 
 
 Glacial Drift -I 
 
 J Pre-glacial 
 
 Alluvium (river-deposits) - 
 
 Briokearth (loam) - 
 Gravel and sand 
 
 *Plateau gravel (of doubtful 
 age) 
 
 ♦Brickearth (and pebbly 
 loam) ... 
 *Clay-with-flints. 
 
 *Boulder Clay 
 f *Loam - 
 \ Gravel and sand - 
 
 Pebble-gravel 
 
 40 
 
 30 
 20 
 
 20? 
 
 30? 
 
 40? 
 20? 
 20? 
 
 20? 
 
 s> 
 a 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 Bagshot Beds -< 
 
 Lower London 
 Tertiaries. 
 
 Cretaceous - -< 
 
 *Upper Bagshot Sand 
 *Bi-acklesham Beds (Middle 
 
 Bagshot) 
 *Pebble-beds "1 Lower 
 Sand and loam J Bagshot. 
 
 London Clay 
 
 Oldhaven and Blackheath 
 
 Beds - 
 Woolwich and Reading Beds 
 Thanet^Sand 
 
 Chalk 
 fUpper Greensand - 
 fGault 
 
 20? 
 
 10? 
 ; 30? 
 1, 150? 
 
 450 
 
 50 
 90 
 50 
 
 700 
 
 30? 
 300J 
 
 To these we may now add, from the evidence of deep wells : — 
 Cretaceous - - Neocomian (Lower Greensand) ? 
 
 Jurassic - - Great Oolite limestone, with clay. 
 
 Triassic, or Old Red ? Red and Grey Marl and Sandstone. 
 Devonian. 
 
 * These do not occur in the model, but only on the map. 
 
 f These do not crop out within the area of the map, but are shown only in the 
 sections of the model. 
 
 X At the S.E. edge only, just beyond which, at Caterham, it is 340 feet. 
 
jiodei, of london. o 
 
 3. The Geological Model of London. 
 General Description. 
 
 The Model of London and the Neighbourhood was 
 placed in the Geological Museum in the summer of 
 1873. Whilst the area it represents is of course much 
 smaller than^ and is wholly contained in, that of the 
 London Sheet, yet, from its being on a much larger 
 scale, its surface is far larger than that of the map. The 
 horizontal scale is 6 inches to the mile (a scale that was 
 taken of necessity, because it is that of the Ordnance 
 County Maps), and as the dimensions represent a length 
 of about 15 miles from east to west, and a breadth of 
 about 11 miles from north to south, it follows that the 
 area shown is about 165 square miles. The boundaries 
 of this area may be seen from the description of the 
 four sections along the edges of the Model (pp. 9-11). 
 
 From the great size of the model it wa,s inconvenient 
 to make it all in one piece, and therefore the area to be 
 represented was divide'd into nine, and advantage was 
 taken of this arrangement to make the divisions in such 
 a way that they should run along lines that would offer 
 good sections. The nine parts are therefore irregular- 
 shaped four-sided masses of unequal size. Of these the 
 four at the corners are fixed ; but each, of the other five 
 can be independently moved, so as to bring up and show 
 the sections along its inner sides. 
 
 It was at first . intended to make the vertical scale the 
 same as the horizontal, but it was soon seen that if this 
 were done the undulations of the ground would hardly 
 be visible in the model, the greatest difference of level 
 in the area represented, namely that between the Thames 
 and the top of Hampstead Heath, being little more than 
 half an inch on that scale ; consequently all the minor 
 features would have been entirely lost, and even the 
 chief slopes would have been indistinct, so that one of 
 the objects of the model would have been defeated. 
 
 Should the adoption of an exaggerated vertical scale 
 need any further apology I would remark that in nature 
 our eyes nearly always exaggerate. "We, see hills fore- 
 shortened, so that, whilst nearly their whole height is 
 impressed on our vision, the more or less gradual nature 
 of their slope is lost ; therefore for a model such as that 
 described to look like what we see in a tract without 
 
b MODEL OF LONDON. 
 
 great or sudden elevations, it should not be absolutely 
 true to nature, but should be somewhat exaggerated in 
 height. It was found that the lowest amount of exag- 
 geration of the vertical scale that could be conveniently 
 adopted was four times the horizontal. This would have 
 given 220 feet to the inch ; but as, for constructional 
 purposes, it would be very useful to have a simple 
 vertical scale, it was decided to take one slightly in 
 excess of this, namely, 200 feet to the inch, and the 
 vertical scale is therefore about 4-4 times as large as 
 the horizontal, though to few eyes, perhaps, will there 
 seem to be any exaggeration, for the model is seen as if 
 from a great elevation. 
 
 The geological lines drawn on the maps that form the 
 upper surface of the model must not be taken as a speci- 
 men of Geological Survey work on a 6-inch scale, for 
 with but very trifling exceptions they were not surveyed 
 on these finished 6-inch maps. The lines, indeed, were 
 for the greater part originally drawn on the old 1-inch 
 map, and have been merely enlarged for the purposes of 
 the model, and slightly corrected from personal know- 
 ledge ; whilst to a smaller extent they were surveyed on 
 a skeleton 6 -inch map. A small piece at the western edge 
 (Acton) was reduced from a 25-inch map made by 
 Major-Greneral Pitt-Eivers, who kindly gave me a 
 tracing of his work. It will be seen, therefore, that the 
 geological lines pretend to no more than being the best 
 that could be drawn with the information and the data 
 possessed, without waiting for a fresh survey on the 
 newer and far more detailed maps, which it is to be hoped 
 may be made some day. 
 
 Gonstruction. 
 
 Tor the following description of the process of making 
 the model I am indebted to Mr. T. B. Jordan, by whom 
 it was carried out, all the constructional arrangements 
 having been intrusted to him. 
 
 " The size, scales, and divisions of the model having 
 been decided on, the work of framing and modelling the 
 surface was proceeded with in the following manner : — 
 A firm foundation-table was made with great care, to 
 avoid any alteration of form or size by shrinkage or 
 warping of the timber ; nine deep frames of the proper 
 
MODEL OF LONDON. 7 
 
 form (one for each, division of the- model) were then made 
 with equal care, and fitted together on the foundation ; 
 each frame-top was then covered with, cotton cloth, and 
 on these was mounted a set of the 6-inch Ordnance 
 Maps of the district." 
 
 " These maps were the foundations, or datum-plane 
 on which, and- by tlie aid of the information they gave, 
 the undulating surface of the model, had to be i-aised. 
 As there was no regular system of contour-lines on the 
 maps tlien available, though. th.ey hajd heights thickly 
 studded over them, the system adopted was to drive 
 measured pins into tbe points where heights were marked, 
 the pins, of which some thousands were used, being cut 
 so that they should exactly agree in height (on the scale 
 of 200 feet to an inch) above the datum-plane with the 
 figures at the points through which they were driven. 
 After driving in these pins over a space which repre- 
 sented about a square mile of surface, that space was 
 covered with 'soft wax to above the pins, and then the 
 wax was nicely worked off" so as just to show the bright 
 end of each wire. By patiently carrying on this process 
 over the whole area the surface of the model was brought 
 out in accordance with ,the datum-heights.; but for 
 many reasons this wax surface could not be used for a 
 permanent model, and therefore it was needful to ob- 
 tain a fac-simile in a more manageable and permanent 
 material." 
 
 " The next process "s^as to raise a wall round each 
 division, and then to cover each with plaster to form 
 moulds, which, after due preparation, were placed in 
 frames of the proper depth, and served as the matrices 
 for taking plaster casts, these last being fac-similes of 
 the wax surface and forming the divisions of the per- 
 manent model." 
 
 " All the divisions, after being carefully dried, were 
 fitted together, thoroughly examined over the whole 
 surface, and mounted on bottom-frames (requisite for 
 fixing the machinery for raising the moveable divi- 
 sions). In doing this many errors of surface were cor- 
 rected, and the plaster was strengthened by sizeing and 
 by a covering of muslin. The model was then ready to 
 receive the machinery for raising the five moveable 
 blocks. This consists of strong iron screws fixed to 
 each of these blocks (which sire soiiiewhat in the shape 
 
8 MODEL OF LONDON. 
 
 of inverted boxes) in the vertical lines through their 
 centres of gravity, and passing through long brass nuts 
 that turn in iron frames bolted up to the fixed frame of 
 the model. These nuts are geared with long horizontal 
 shafts in the bed of the model by bevelled brass wheels ; 
 so that when any of the five shafts are turned (by means 
 of a handle), the division to which it belongs rises or 
 falls and by this means the sections on its sides may be 
 brought into view." 
 
 " The finishing process, and a very difl&cult one, was 
 the mounting of a set of maps on the undulating sur- 
 face of the model (the sides being covered with drawing 
 paper afterwards). The difficulty of this part of the 
 work was much enhanced by having to mount the maps 
 on a surface of exaggerated undulation, a task needing 
 much care and patience." 
 
 I should mention that this last operation, with some 
 corrections of surface that were found to be wanted 
 during its progress, was carried out by Mr. H. F. Brion 
 so well known for his series of Eelief Maps, whose 
 great experience in this sort of work was gladly made 
 use of. The care required may perhaps be more readily 
 understood from the fact that the maps had to be so 
 thoroughly saturated as to be little better than pulp 
 before they were fixed on the surface of the model. 
 
 The model was now, of course, merely a topographical 
 one, and it only remained to make it geological also. 
 This last addition, however, took much time, from the 
 amount of surface to be dealt with and from the frequent 
 shifting of the heavy but somewhat fragile blocks that 
 was needful. 
 
 All the geological lines on the model were drawn by 
 myself, and both in the case of the maps and sections 
 these had to be drawn after the paper had been fixed to 
 the parts of the model. In the duplicate sections, on 
 opposing faces, a transfer was made, from my original 
 section on one of the faces, by my former colleague, Mr. 
 J. B. Jordan, of the Mining Record Office, who also did 
 the colouring, a task of some difficulty in the case of the 
 map, both from its being on an uneven surface, and, what 
 was worse, consisting of different sorts fo paper (that of 
 the Ordnance Map and that of Stanford's Map) which 
 took the colours very unequally. The latter map had 
 to be used in part as the Ordnance Maps were not all 
 finished at the time when the model was made. 
 
MODEL OF LONDON. 9 
 
 Description of the Sections. 
 
 Of the eight lines of section in the model, four, of 
 course, are along its edges, and fun either due N. and S. 
 or due E. and "W. ; but the other four do not run in 
 quite the same directions, the divisions of the model 
 having been laid out to carry these lines through parti- 
 cular points. 
 
 Of the first four, the Western Section, starting from 
 the north, runs from the London Olay west of the Brent 
 Eeservoir, across the gravel of the Brent west of Willes- 
 den, again over London Clay to the higher terrace of 
 gravel at Acton, and then, crossing a narrow outcrop of 
 London Olay on the slight southern slope, over the 
 brickearth flat to Turnham Green and the still lower 
 gravel to the south, with the narrow fringe of alluvium 
 on the left side of the Thames. Crossing the river to 
 Mortlake it continues over the gravel to East Sheen, and 
 then over the rising ground of London Clay in Eichmond 
 Park (with its cappings of gravel on the higher parts) 
 to Combe Wood. 
 
 Along this section the gravel is everywhere underlain 
 by London Clay, no lower bed coming to the surface, or 
 even near to it, and the beds are even, with a slight 
 southerly dip. There seems to be no Thanet Sand, 
 except at the southern end, and the Blackheath Beds 
 are absent throughout. 
 
 The Southern Section, beginning from the high gravel 
 of Combe "Wood on the west, runs across the London 
 Clay of the valley of the Beverley Brook and of the 
 southern slope of Wimbledon Hill to the gravel of 
 Merton, then, crossing the Wandle, with its narrow 
 alluvium, and the equally narrow outcrop of London 
 Clay on its right bank, it passes over the gravel of 
 Tooting and the low gravel-capped hillock on the east, 
 again returning to the gravel S.W. of Streatham Common, 
 and then crosses the London Clay hill of Upper Norwood, 
 with its small thin gravel-cap, to the outcrop of the 
 Blackheath Beds, east of Penge, and over that series to 
 the Ravensboume. Crossing the alluvium and gravel 
 of that streani and the narrow outcrop of the Woolwich 
 Beds on its right side, it runs across the Blackheath 
 Beds north of Bromley and the successive outcrops of 
 
10 MODEL OP LONDON. 
 
 the "Woolwich Beds, the Thanet Sand, and the Chalk on 
 either side of the valley of Sundridge and Camden Parks, 
 to the Blackheath Beds at Prick End, Chiselhurst. . 
 
 Along the western half of this course the London 
 Clay is the lowest bed that occurs at the surface, or 
 under the patches of gravel ; but, eastward, from an 
 uprise of the beds, the various lower formations have 
 been brought up so as to have been laid bare by ero- 
 sion, the effect of which just extends through to the 
 Chalk at one spot. The Thanet Sand thickens eastward. 
 The Blactheath Beds are absent on the west, but come 
 in at the east and thicken until they are in force. 
 
 The beds are slightly waved, and with a general dip 
 westward. 
 
 The Eastern Section starts from the Blackheath Beds 
 near Chiselhurst, runs through the lower ground of 
 London Clay on the north ; then up the slope east of 
 Bltham, with its successive outcrops of Blackheath Beds 
 and of "Woolwich Beds, the former of these coming on 
 again, with a change of dip, higher up northward, and 
 then the London Clay, in its course across which the 
 line of the section rises to Shooter's Hill and after 
 passing down the northern slope, crosses the outcrops of 
 the Blackheath Beds at the western end of Plumstead 
 Common, and of the "Woolwich Beds and Thanet Sand at 
 Woolwich, to the alluvial flat of the Arsenal. Crossing 
 the Thames and the broad spread of alluvium on its left 
 side to Barking, it runs through the gravel-tract and the 
 brickearth at Ilf ord to the gravel and narrow outcrop of 
 London Clay on the north. 
 
 Along the southern half of this course the beds are 
 slightly waved, and from this cause and the varying level 
 of the surface all from the London Clay to the Thanet 
 Sand occur at the surface, and the Chalk seems to under- 
 lie the gravel at "Woolwich Arsenal. At (or near) the 
 Thames the beds are thrown down on the north by a 
 fault which has been proved to run along the valley for 
 some miles, and by means of which beds of the same age 
 as those that form the plateau of Plumstead Common and 
 Abbey "Wood are brought below the marshes of the river. 
 Beyond the fault the beds are nearly flat, and from Bark- 
 ing northward the gravel is underlain by London Clay. 
 The Blackheath Beds seem to thin out on the north. 
 
MODEL OF LONDON. 11 
 
 The Northern Section starts, on the east, from the 
 gravel and London Olay of Valentines (near Ilford), cuts 
 across the valley of the Eoding (which consists on both 
 sides of gravel at the top, London Clay on the slope, and 
 alluvium filling the bottom) to the gravel and London 
 Olay of "Wanstead and Leytonstone ; then down the 
 gentle gravel-slope of Leyton, across the Lea and its 
 marsh, and up the short clay-slope on the right bank of 
 the river to the gravel of Stamford Hill, whence it crosses 
 the London Clay tract to the west, rising up to Highgate, 
 with its cap of Bagshot Sand, and, after passing the 
 London Clay between, to the northern part of the same 
 sand at Hampstead, and thence across the London Clay 
 to beyond the Brent reservoir. 
 
 In this section the beds are nearly flat, with a very 
 slight rise at the west, and the London Olay is the lowest 
 outcropping formation. The Blackheath Beds are absent 
 and the Thanet Sand seems to thin out at the west. 
 
 Of the second four sections, all of which pass through 
 the inner parts of the model, and can only be seen by 
 raising its moveable divisions, the West Gentral Section 
 starts on the north from the Bagshot Sand of Highgate 
 and runs southward over the London Olay of Kentish 
 Town and the eastern side of Regent's Park, across the 
 gravel to Oxford Street and Grosvenor Square, between 
 which places it cuts the North Central Section and 
 changes its direction a few degrees to the east, then 
 running, still over gravel, to the narrow London Olay 
 outcrop of Buckingham Palace Gardens (and of the 
 Green Park), across the lower gravel-flat by Eaton 
 Square to the Thames at Victoria Bridge. Crossing the 
 river it passes through the flat of brickearth at the 
 eastern side of Battersea Park, the low gravel beyond, 
 and the narrow strip of alluvium that runs eastward to 
 Vauxhall, up the narrow outcrop of London Clay on the 
 south and over the gravel of Clapham Common (at the 
 southern end of which it cuts the South Central Section), 
 the London Olay at Balham, and the gravel of Streatham 
 Park, to the clay and gravel on the south. 
 
 Along this section the London Clay is the lowest bed 
 that comes to the surface, or that occurs next below the 
 gravel. In the northern half the beds are waved, the 
 Chalk rising up considerably at Regent's Park ; but in 
 
12 MODEL OF LONDON. 
 
 the southern half they are almost flat. The Blackheath 
 Beds are absent and the Thanet Sand thickens south- 
 ward. 
 
 The East Central Section begins on the north at the 
 gravel of Stamford Hill, and, passing across the narrow 
 outcrop of London Clay in the hollow to the south, runs 
 through the brickearth of Stoke JS"ewington and the 
 gravel-flat beyond, along a line east of and roughly par- 
 allel to Kingsland Eoad, to the Great Eastern Railway, 
 just east of the' old Bishopsgate Station, where it cuts the 
 North Central Section and changes its southerly for 
 a south-south-easterly course, still across gravel, by 
 Spitalfields, to the made ground and alluvium of the 
 London Docks. Crossing the Thames to Rotherhithe 
 it passes through the broad alluvial flat, and its southern 
 border of gravel, to the outcrop of Woolwich Beds and 
 the thin spurs of London Clay near New Cross, across 
 the patch of gravel on the south, though Loam Pit 
 Hill, with its outlier of London Clay, across the 
 gravel of the Ravensbourne at Lewisham, the rise of 
 London Clay eastward of Southend, and the outcrop of 
 the Blackheath Beds north of Bromley. 
 
 At the northern end the beds are level, but for the 
 rest of tie course slightly waved, the slight general 
 dip being to the north, so that lower beds are brought 
 up southward. The fault crossed between New Cross and 
 Lewisham may be a continuation of that noticed in the 
 Eastern Section, but with a much smaller downthrow 
 (on the north). North of the Thames the London Clay 
 is the lowest outcropping formation, but south of the 
 fiver lower beds mostly occur, either at the surface or 
 under the gravel, and in the central part of the section 
 an uprise brings the Chalk near to the surface, so that 
 it next underlies the gravel midway between Rotherhithe 
 and New Cross. North of Lewisham the Blackheath 
 Beds are absent, but at the southern end of the section 
 they crop up in force. 
 
 The North Central Section runs in a straight line 
 north of east, from the ^north of Turnham Green over the 
 broad spread of brickearth by Shepherds' Bush to the 
 foot of Netting Hill, up the London Clay slope (at the 
 north of Holland Park) to the gravel at top, and then 
 along a line just south of the Uxbridge Road, Oxford 
 
MODEL OF LONDON. 13 
 
 Street, and Holbom (as far as Gray's Inn Road), wholly 
 across gravel, except for the small outcrop of London 
 Clay in the hollow at the head of the Serpentine and 
 some small patches of loam, at one of which it cuts 
 the West Central Section (north of Grosvenor Square). 
 Then crossing the shallow valley, with its London Clay 
 bottom, it again runs across gravel, by the Aldersgate 
 Street and old Bishopsgate Railway Stations (cutting 
 the East Central Section just beyond the latter) and 
 nearly along the line of the Great Eastern Railway 
 to Bromley- by- Bow, when it crosses the marsh of the 
 Lea and the gravel-flat beyond, from West Ham, by the 
 north of Plaistow and East Ham, to the alluvium of the 
 Roding and the gravel on the left bank of that stream 
 at the northern end of Barking. 
 
 At the western end the beds are flat, but over the rest 
 of the course slightly waved, especially at the central 
 part. The London Clay is the lowest formation at the 
 surface, but at Stratford, from a slight local rise, the 
 Woolwich Beds are next beneath the gravel. The 
 Thanet Sand seems to thin out at the western end, but 
 it must soon come in eastward, in which direction it 
 thickens. The Blackheath Beds are absent, except at 
 the eastern end, unless, the upper part of what has been 
 coloured as Woolwich Beds at Stratford should turn out 
 to belong to that division. 
 
 The South Central Section also runs in a straight line 
 and nearly parallel with the last, but slightly diverging 
 from it eastward, from its course having a little less 
 northing. Starting at the London Clay just south-west 
 of White Lodge, Richmond Park, it cuts the small 
 gravel-patch there, and passes across the clay valley of 
 the Beverley Brook, the high gravel of Putney Heath, 
 down the London Clay slope beyond to the Wandle. 
 Crossing the alluvium of that river, the border of gravel 
 on its right side, the narrow outcrop of London Clay on 
 the slope, and the higher gravel of Wandsworth Common, 
 it passes over the London Clay (in the little hollow to 
 the east) to the corresponding gravel at the southern 
 end of Clapham Common, where it cuts the North 
 Central Section, and then runs across the London Clay 
 of Clapham Park, and, touching the southern end of the 
 bay of gravel east of Heme Hill, over part of that hill 
 
14 MODEL OF LONDON. 
 
 to the outcrop of the Woolwich Beds on the east (-with 
 a spur of London Clay in the' middle) , across the London 
 Clay of Peckham Rye and the rising ground on the east 
 to the outcrop of the Woolwich Beds on either side of 
 Lewisham (with the London Clay outlier of Loam Pit 
 Hill, where it cuts the Bast Central Section), and across 
 the gravel of the Ravensbourne and its affluent the 
 Quaggy Brook to the Blackheath Beds at Lee, and then 
 up the London Clay slope of Shooter's Hill. It was 
 intended to have taken this Section a trifle further 
 north, so as to pass through the highest part of this 
 hill, with its capping of pebble-gravel ; but the original 
 course was slightly changed by accident in the con- 
 struction of the model. 
 
 The beds are flat at the western end, they rise to the 
 centre, and then are nearly flat to the east. The London 
 Clay is the lowest formation that crops out on the west ; 
 but lower beds are brought up to the surface at the 
 central part, the Woolwich Beds being the lowest thus 
 seen. The Thanet Sand is very thin on the west, but 
 thickens eastward, and the Blackheath Beds are present 
 only at the eastern part of the course. 
 
 The total length of these eight sections is about 52^ 
 feet, representing 105 miles, and they are all carried 
 down far below the level of the Ordnance Datum 
 (sometimes to more than 1,000 feet). They have been 
 ^rawn to the probable position of the base of the Grault, 
 as well as that geological horizon could be estimated, 
 beyond which it would have been vain, at the time the 
 model was made, to do more than speculate on the 
 downward succession of the beds. 
 
 The Gault had then been touched in only two borings 
 within the area of the model, in one (Kentish Town) 
 having been pierced through, with a thickness of over 
 130 feet, whilst in another (Crossness) it was still 
 unbpttomed, with a thickness of 148 feet. 1 thought 
 that these two borings justified me in drawing all the 
 sections on the London Model to the base of the Gault, 
 and left small room for doubt that this formation is 
 continuous underneath the London Basin, a conclusion 
 borne out by the borings since made. 
 , • Deep wells that occurred on or close to the lines of 
 section, and of which any sufficient record existed, were 
 
MODEL OF LONDON. 15 
 
 drawn thereon ; but besides these, many others, though 
 more removed from the sections, were available in calcu- 
 lating the thickness of the beds. Wells of later date than 
 the model could not be added without great trouble (in 
 moving parts of the model), so that the beds now proved 
 to occur beneath the Gault (see table opp. p. 20, and 
 frontispiece) have not been coloured. 
 
 It should be remembered that from the exaggerated 
 vertical scale of the model (see pp. 5, 6) all the dips are 
 also exaggerated. 
 
 The colours used- in the model differ somewhat from 
 those of the , Geological Survey, which, for our purpose, 
 do not enough distinguish the three divisions of the 
 Lower London Tertiaries. Brighter colours were there- 
 fore used for these ; but they have suffered much in 
 their 16 years' exposure to the sun-light, not perhaps so 
 rare a thing in London as is often thought. 
 
16 
 
 CHAPTER 2. 
 
 ORBTAOBOUS AND OLDER BEDS. 
 
 1. Range op Old Rocks underground. 
 
 Although the Chalk may be called the basement-rook 
 of the London Basin, yet in the midst of that tract some 
 wells have been sunk to so great a depth as to pass 
 through it into the beds below. In most cases the Upper 
 Greensand and in all cases the Gault succeeded in due 
 order ; but beneath the latter there is great variety in 
 the beds found, as will be seen from the following 
 account of the wells in question, some of which are beyond 
 our district : — 
 
 Kentish, Town. — The lowest 188 feet of the well-known 
 boring at the south-western foot of Highgate Hill passed 
 through a set of clays, sands, sandstones, and conglome- 
 rates, of various kinds and colours, that has much puzzled 
 geologists. Some have looked on them as an exceptional 
 condition of the Lower Greensand, differing from that 
 formation at its outcrop, beyond the London Basin, in 
 having a more conglomeratic or shore-like character, as 
 would naturally be the case if a ridge of older rocks had 
 been present there in the seas of the period. Some 
 again, from their general red and mottled colour, would 
 refer them to the New Red Series (Trias) or to the Old 
 Red Sandstone. The evidence of fossils has been but 
 slight, consequent on the small quantity of earth brought 
 up in boring, and also from its more or less crushed 
 state ; but fragments of Ammonites and of Belemnites 
 were found, which seemed to favour the reference of 
 the beds to the Cretaceous Series, but these fossils had 
 probably fallen in from above. 
 
 From an examination of some specimens of sandstone 
 and red marl, - in the Museum at Jermyn Street, I was 
 led to think that these beds might be Triassic, unless 
 some part should turn out to be older, one specimen 
 being rather like Carboniferous sandstone. 
 
 Harwich. — Soon after the Kentish Town boring was 
 made, a trial-bore at Harwich, after passing through a 
 small thickness of Gault, reached, at the depth of 1,025 
 feet, a dark grey shaly rock. In the cores brought up 
 from this rock both bedding and joints are well shown, 
 and from the occurrence of Posidonia it has been deter- 
 
UNDEEGROCND BOCKS. 17 
 
 mined to be of Lower Carboniferous age. There are 
 some specimens from this boring in the Museum at 
 Jermyn Street. 
 
 Loughton. — The Great Eastern Railway Company suc- 
 cessfully made a boring for water at their station here, 
 which, after passing through a good thickness of Gault, 
 reached a water-bearing bed at the depth of nearly 
 1,100 feet. Presumably the bed in question is Lower 
 Greensand, although we have no direct evidence. 
 
 Grossness. — ^At the Southern Outfall Works of the 
 Metropolitan Board of "Works a trial-bore was originally 
 carried some depth into the Gault, and then abandoned. 
 Afterwards another trial was made and carried through 
 the Gault, until, at a depth of 1,008 feet, a set of red 
 marls and sandstones was found. These have been 
 classed as Old Red Sandstone ; but I am disposed rather 
 to think them of New Red age, some of the purplish clay 
 being exactly like New Red Marl. 
 
 Meux's Brewery. — ^At about the same time as the last 
 boring was made Messrs. Meux and Co. finished the 
 deepening of their well, at the junction of Oxford Street 
 and Tottenham Court Road. The work was done by 
 diamond-boring, and a very fine and perfect set of cores 
 was brought up, specimens of which may be seen in the 
 Museum at Jermyn Street. Below the Gault there oc- 
 curred more than 60 feet of beds which, from their 
 fossils, were determined as Lower Greensand ; though 
 lithologically for the most part very different from that 
 formation at its outcrop, being to a great extent com- 
 posed of a limestone of oolitic structure ; and fresh ex- 
 amination of the evidence has shown that the structural 
 characters would have led to a right determination, the 
 fossils being really Jurassic. Beneath these beds there 
 was found, at a depth of 1,066 feet, a hard purple shale, 
 the frequent bedding-planes of which showed a dip of 
 about 30° whilst the contained fossils clearly proved it to 
 be Devonian. 
 
 Gheshunt. — The New River Company have made 
 a deep well at Tumford (the nbtthem part of Ghes- 
 hunt) in which purple Devonian shale was found, directly 
 beneath the Gault, at the depth of 980 feet. I have 
 
 U 60615. _ 
 
\8 UNDBBQKOUND EOCKS. 
 
 seen the last core brought up from this boring: it 
 was a column 15 feet long originally, but since _ broken 
 along the bedding-planes, and 15 inches in diameter, 
 with fossils in certain layers, and was a fine example of 
 the work of the diamond-drill. There are specimens of 
 these large cores in the Museum at Jermyn Street. 
 
 Ware. — ^At about the same time the New Eiver Com- 
 pany had another well, niade by diamond-boring, which 
 reached the old rocks at a less depth than at any of the 
 above wells ; for at "Ware, below the Grault (with perhaps 
 a trace of Lower Greensand) the tool passed, at a depth 
 of 796 feet, into shales with thin patches of limestone, 
 the fossils from which proved that these beds are of 
 Upper Silurian (Wenlock) age. These rocks have a dip 
 of about 30° which is believed to be in a southerly 
 direction, whilst in the other wells the direction is un- 
 known. From this boring also there are specimens at 
 Jermyn Street. 
 
 BicJimond. — -A boring at the Waterworks here is the 
 deepest in the London Basin, and is further of special 
 interest from the cores brought up having been carefully 
 examined by Prof. Judd, so that a detailed account of 
 the beds passed through has been written. After the 
 usual succession, to the base of the G-ault, some impure 
 sandy limestone that may tie Neocomian (Lower 
 Greensand) occurs, but is soon succeeded by thick beds 
 of oolitic limestone with thin clays, which last have 
 yielded many small fossils of Middle Jurassic age. 
 Beneath these beds come red and variegated sandstones 
 and red marls, which have been classed as Triassic or 
 as Old Eed, and the small quantity of water from which 
 has a high temperature, and can rise to a height of more 
 than 120 feet above the surface of the ground (close to 
 the Thames). Whether any large quantity of water can 
 be got from this source is of course a question to be 
 solved only by experiment, which however has failed in 
 this case. From the fact that small pieces of anthracite 
 have been found in the deeper parts of the boring (above 
 the red beds) we naturally infer that Coal Measures may 
 occur at no enormous depth at no very great distance. 
 There are specimens of the lower beds in the Jermyn 
 Street Museum. 
 
UNDERGROUND ROCKS. 19 
 
 Streatham. — The last of our deep borings in or near 
 London was made for the Sonthwark and Yauxliall 
 Water Company, near Streatham Common Station, since 
 the publication of Ed, 4 of this work. Here the Chalk 
 ■was found to be thinner than in any of the other 
 borings through the Tertiary beds, reaching only a 
 thickness of 623 feet. «J?he Upper G-reensand and the 
 Grault succeeded in due order, the latter, however, being 
 thinner than at Eichmond, though thicker than in the 
 other borings above noticed. Of the Lower G-reensand 
 no trace was found, the G-ault being underlain, as at 
 Meux's, by Jurassic limestone ; here, however, thinner 
 than there. Beneath the last the boring passed into grey, 
 reddish and purplish beds like those of Eichmond, &c., 
 and with a like high dip, but which again gave little 
 evidence of their age, in the 138 feet from which cores 
 were brought up. Near the base, however, in a grey 
 micaceous sandstone, there were remains of plants, and 
 fragments of fossils that may be fish-remains. This 
 particular rock is like some beds in the Old Eed Sand- 
 stone, and is also suggestive of the passage-beds from 
 that formation into the Silurian, as seen at Ledbury, &c. 
 The cores brought up have been sent to Jermyn Street, 
 but they represent only the harder parts, the softer 
 having been ground away. The last 13 feet of core was 
 unfortunately not brought up. 
 
 We are still therefore in doubt about the age of the 
 red beds, though the evidence seems to have veered 
 away from the Trias. 
 
 It m£iy interest the reader to compare the sections of 
 these wells, and therefore an abstract^ of the beds passed 
 through is given in a tabular form, opposite p. 20. In this 
 table I have also inserted accounts of 15 other deep well- 
 sections, most of which are in the Chalk-tract beyond the 
 older Tertiary beds and go through to the Gault at least. 
 
 One of these, near the chalk-escarpment above Cater- 
 ham, in Surrey, a little beyond our limits, has been sunk 
 through more than 340 feet of G-ault, the greatest thiok- 
 ness of that formation yet found in England. 
 
 Another, at Holkham Hall, near Wells (Norfolk), has 
 been carried some depth into the Neocomian (Lower 
 Greensand) which crops out about 12 miles to the west, 
 where however it next underlies the local Eed Chalk, 
 the Gault being absent. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 UNDEEGKOUND EOCKS. 
 
 The only one that lias not been carried into tlie Gault 
 is in London, at Mann and Crossmann's Brewery, 
 Mile End, and it is remarkable as getting a supply of 
 water from tbe Upper Greensand. 
 
 The second boring at the Chatham Dockyard Exten- 
 sion Works, finished in 1884, is of interest in that it 
 shows a great thinning of the beds underground, at no 
 great distance from their outcrop, for whereas in the 
 neighbourhood of Maidstone the Lower Greensand is 
 about 200 feet thick, in this boring, only seven miles 
 from the nearest part of the outcrop, it is only 41 feet. 
 
 Moreover, whilst at Maidstone the Weald Olay is 
 some 600 feet thick (unless the record of an old boring 
 there has been misread), here it has quite thinned out, 
 and with it the whole of the underlying Hastings Beds, 
 which crop out in great force to the south. It was at 
 first naturally thought that the clay bored into beneath 
 the Lower Greensand was Weald Olay ; but the occur- 
 rence of small Oxford Olay fossils two feet down in this 
 bed effectually disproved that idea, and proved on the 
 other hand that the Lower Greensand is here under- 
 lain by a Middle Jurassic deposit. 
 
 It is only in the neighbourhood of Ohatham that 
 success has generally attended the attempt to get water 
 by deep borings from the Lower Greensand (as at Ohat- 
 tenden, Frindsbury, and Strood). 
 
 At Dover Convict Prison a somewhat different ar- 
 rangement was found to that at Chatham ; for, whilst 
 the two borings agree in the thinness of the Lower 
 Greensand found, at Dover this formation is underlain 
 by Wealden beds, though these seem to belong rather 
 to the Hastings Series than to the overlying Weald 
 Olay, which seems to have thinned out. If rumour be 
 right, the experimental boring that is being made by 
 the South Eastern Eailway Co. near Dover, has passed 
 through the Wealden beds and Jurassic limestone into 
 older beds; but no authoritative statement has been 
 made. This last is the sole purely experimental boring 
 of those above-noticed, all the rest of which have been 
 made in search of water. 
 
 Whilst treating of wells it may be noted that accounts 
 of over 1,650 wells and deep borings in various parts of 
 
Guide to the Geology of London, opp. p. 20. 
 
 Abstract Account of Deep Borings (througli the Chalk) in the London Basin, showing the Thickness in Feet of the Beds passed through. 
 
 Geological Formations 
 found. 
 
 East Horsley. 
 
 Richmond Waterworks. 
 
 1 7 ft. above Ordnance Datum. 
 
 C3 
 
 1 
 
 
 Tottenham Court Road, 
 Meux & Co.'s Brewery. 
 
 About 85 ft. abdve Ordnance 
 Datum. 
 
 Kentish Town. 
 174 ft. above Thames high- 
 water mark. 
 
 d 
 
 O ! 
 
 a 1 
 ■a >. 
 
 1. 
 
 ^^ o 
 
 o 
 
 aJ 
 1 
 
 Caterham Waterworks. 
 About 707 feet above 
 Ordnance Datum. 
 
 Loughton. Great Eastern 
 Railway. 
 
 Crossness, near 
 
 Erith. 
 
 Metropolitan 
 
 Board of Works. 
 
 ? 5 or 6 feet 
 
 above Ordnance 
 
 Datum. 
 
 Strood. 
 
 Erindsbury Cement Works, 
 near Rochester. 
 
 Chatteuden Barracks. 
 
 Chatham 
 Dockyard Ex- 
 tension. ' 
 10 and 16 feet 
 above Ordnancf 
 Datum. 
 
 Chartham . 
 
 
 a> 
 
 1 
 
 Harwich. 
 
 Coombs, near Stowmarket, 
 Suffolk. 
 
 Norwich (Carrow Works). 
 
 1 
 t-i 
 
 CS 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 is 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 .1 
 a 
 
 i 
 
 'd 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 No. 1. j No. 2. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 1. Made ground, Alluvium, 
 Drift. 
 
 13? 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 22? 
 
 
 201 
 
 1 r 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 33? 
 
 39 
 
 42 
 
 — 
 
 
 224orl7J 
 
 1 r 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 2.j 
 
 07 
 
 12 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 2. London Clay - 
 
 — 
 
 160 
 
 153? 
 
 i - 
 
 64 
 
 236 
 
 841 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 167 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 101 
 
 — 
 
 27 
 
 _ 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 23? 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 .3. OldhavenandBlackiieath 
 Beds. 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 j — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 ■ 102^ - 
 
 — 
 
 89 
 
 — 
 
 r *^H 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 H 
 
 — 
 
 (of 
 
 • 1 ■ 
 
 and 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 4. Woolwich and Reading 
 Beds. 
 
 — 
 
 60 
 
 431? 
 
 — 
 
 514 
 
 6H 
 
 41 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 36 
 
 J I 
 
 47 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 59^- 
 
 — 
 
 5) 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 30? 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 5. Thanet Beds - 
 
 20? 
 
 231 
 
 35? 
 
 — 
 
 21 
 
 27 
 
 55 
 
 - 
 
 — 
 
 
 40 
 
 42 
 
 51 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 . 1211 
 
 3 or 31 
 
 L, 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 6. Chalk - 
 
 8171 
 
 671 
 
 623 
 
 685 
 
 655-1 
 
 640 
 
 654 681-1 
 
 1 
 
 544 
 
 369? 
 
 651? 
 
 646 
 
 ■696?- 
 
 505 
 
 618 
 
 680 or 
 682? 
 
 684-1 or 
 689 
 
 682 
 
 735 
 
 674 
 
 539 
 
 890 
 
 817? 
 
 1146 
 
 635, and 
 
 Red 
 Chalk, 8 
 
 6 
 
 7. Upper Greensand 
 
 171? 
 
 16 
 
 29? 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 13i 
 
 20 40 ? 
 
 77? 
 
 53? 
 
 30? 
 
 12 
 
 J L 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ? 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 
 7 
 
 8. Gault - 
 
 6 
 
 201-1 
 
 188 
 
 a 
 
 160 
 
 1301 
 
 — 1561? 
 
 160 
 
 343? 
 
 172 
 
 148 
 
 175 
 
 195 
 
 193 
 
 192orl90 
 
 193^ 
 
 193 
 
 5 
 
 143 
 
 19 
 
 61 
 
 11 
 
 38? 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 n. Lower Greensand 
 
 — 
 
 10? 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 ■i 
 
 20 
 
 touched ? 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 15 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 touched 
 
 41 
 
 "■ 
 
 31 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 70 
 
 9 
 
 10. Wealden 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 __ 
 
 
 
 — — — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 82 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 10 
 
 1 1 . Jurassic 
 
 — 
 
 87-1 
 
 381 
 
 — 
 
 64 
 
 — 
 
 1 . 
 
 — 
 
 _ 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 32 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 11 
 
 12. Red Marl and Sandstone 
 (? Trias or Old Ked). 
 
 — 
 
 207 
 
 138 
 
 
 — 
 
 188i 
 
 i 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 52 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 13 
 
 13. Carboniferous (dark slaty 
 rock). 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 69 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 13 
 
 14. Devonian (Purple Shales)' 
 
 — 
 
 — : 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 80 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 291 _ 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 14 
 
 15. Upper Silurian. Wen- ■ 
 lock Shale. 
 
 i 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 35 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 15 
 
 i 
 
 Total Depth 
 
 874 1 
 
 about 
 1446 
 
 1258 
 
 700 1 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 1146? 
 
 1302 
 
 875 
 
 1010 ! 831i 
 
 874 
 
 1096? 
 
 950 
 
 1060 
 
 757 
 
 815 
 
 1165 
 
 903J 
 
 965 
 
 740 
 
 931 
 
 567 
 
 1098 
 
 895 
 
 1196 
 
 743 
 
 The so-called Upper Greensand in the Ware boring is probably for the most part Chalk Marl. j 
 
 In the case of Harwich some Upper Greensand may have been included with the Gault. j ' 
 
 Various accounts of the Norwich well have been published : the above is from a drawing and specimene in Messrs. Coleman's Office. Some part here entered as Gault may be Upper Greensand. 
 
 i; 60510. 
 
UNDERGROUND ROCKS. 21 
 
 the London Basin (from Berkstire, on the west, to Kent 
 and Norfolk, on the east and on the north) are to be 
 found in the 18 Geological Survey Memoirs that treat 
 of the district. 
 
 One of the most striking pieces of theoretical geology, 
 or of philosophical inference from observed facts, is 
 Mr. Godwin- Austen's argument that the two exposures 
 of the older rocks in the Ardennes (Belgium) and in our 
 own Mendip Hills (Somerset) are parts of one great 
 axis, or line of elevation, and that thej are most likely 
 connected underground by a hidden range of those older 
 rocks,, nearly along the valley of the Thames and the 
 Wealden elevation; an important conclusion, that was 
 to a great extent at once verified by the sinking of the 
 Harwich well, and also by the doubtful nature of the 
 beds below the Gault in the .Kentish Town well. 
 
 Absolute proof of the occurrence of an underground 
 rise of the older rocks under London was given in 
 1877, by the deepening of the well at Meux's brewery, 
 and the consequent discovery of Devonian shales, as well 
 as by the second Crossness boring, with its red rocks. 
 
 It has been said that although, from the cores brought 
 up from some of the deep borings, we can estimate the 
 angle of dip of the rocks, yet for calculations as to the 
 probable extent of. any of these rocks, and as to where 
 other rocks may be expected either to come on above 
 or to rise up from beneath them, it is needful to be able 
 also to approximate to the direction of dip. This, how- 
 ever, may be really of less importance than at first sight 
 seems to be the case ; for judging by what we generally 
 see of the older rocks in districts where they are at the 
 surface, they are much subject to disturbances and are 
 thrown into great rolls or folds, so that whilst at one 
 spot dipping north, near by they may turn over and dip 
 south. We find, too, in the coal-fields of Belgium and 
 of the North of France frequent evidence of sharp folding, 
 and indeed of inversion of these older rocks underneath 
 the even and almost undisturbed Cretaceous and Tertiary 
 beds. If, therefore, we were able to find the direction 
 of the dip of the rocks in any of our deep wells (as indeed 
 is supposed to have been done in the ca,se of Ware) it 
 would be unsafe to argue from that alone as to the pro- 
 bable succession of the beds in any direction for a con- 
 siderable distance. 
 
22 UNDEEGBOUND ROCKS. 
 
 We are not, however, without some grounds for 
 speculation concerning the lie of the older rocks under 
 London and the neighbourhood, for, taking the infor- 
 mation already yielded by the various borings, what do 
 we find ? Starting from Meux's, where Upper Devonian 
 beds occur, capped by Jurassic limestone, and going 
 northward, we find, at the foot of Highgate Hill, the 
 Kentish Town section, where the bottom beds are of 
 uncertain age, though the probabilities seem to me in 
 favour of their being Trias, whilst some regard them as 
 Old Eed ; we then come to Cheshunt, again in Devonian, 
 but at a slightly higher level than at Meux's, and then 
 to Ware, when we find lower rocks, belonging to the 
 Upper Silurian, and at a still higher level. 
 
 Again at Crossness we have beds which may be 
 Triassic, though very high authorities class these also as 
 Old Red (the equivalent of Devonian), and then, far 
 beyond our district, the boring of the Subwealden 
 Exploration, near Battle, proved a great thickness of 
 Jurassic clays (Kimeridge and Oxford) beneath the Pur- 
 beck Beds, whilst at Chatham Oxford Clay has been 
 found next beneath Lower Greensand. 
 
 Further west too, at Eichmond, we again have what 
 is possibly Trias, though here also Old Eed age has 
 been assigned to the Eed Eocks capped by Jurassic 
 limestone. 
 
 There is a reason against the classification of the 
 bottom beds at Kentish Town and Crossness with the 
 Old Eed Sandstone, which seems to have escaped notice 
 before the publication of Ed. 3 of this work. Having 
 that series unmistakably present in the Devonian type at 
 Cheshunt and at Meux's, it would be strange indeed were 
 it to occur in its wholly distinct Old Eed type at Kentish 
 Town, between .those two places, and at Crossness, not 
 very many miles from the latter of them. I believe that 
 such a thing is at all events very unusual, the two types 
 of what is generally taken to be one great geological 
 system being limited to separate districts, and not 
 occurring together. 
 
 It has been said that the red beds are less likely to be 
 Trias from their being capped by limestones and clays 
 of Great Oolite age, without anything to represent the 
 Inferior Oolite or the Lias between ; whilst at the surface 
 
UNDERGROUND ROCKS. 23 
 
 the succession is regular. This, however, applies only 
 to Kichmond and Streatham, not to Kentish Town and 
 Crossness, where the red beds are ca,pped by Gault, such 
 unconformity between Cretaceous and Triassic beds 
 being common in the "West of England. Moreover, near 
 Frome, both Inferior Oolite and the Fullers' Earth Series 
 have been mapped as directly overlying Trias. 
 
 The suggested occurrence of Triassic beds both north- 
 ward, westward, and eastward of Meux's Brewery, 
 though absent there, presents no difficulty, as those beds 
 would rest unconformably on the Devonian and Carboni- 
 ferous rocks, and might naturally be expected to lie in 
 the hollows worn out of them, and to have been them- 
 selves worn away in great part before the deposition of 
 the Cretaceous beds. 
 
 The general tendency of the known facts is therefore 
 to show that, whilst northward from London older rocks 
 rise up, for many miles at least, south-eastward, on the 
 Other hand, newer rocks come on above. The inference 
 from this is of course that it is in the latter direction 
 we should, in the first place, expect to find Carboniferous 
 rocks of some sort, if not actual Coal Measures. That 
 disturbance of the beds may bring in such rocks else- 
 where is of course likely ; but we have no evidence of 
 the whereabouts of the lines of disturbance that doubt- 
 lessly occur. 
 
 Although the further argument that true Coal 
 Measures may occur along the lines indicated has not 
 yet passed out of the domain of inference, and though, 
 should such beds occur, we cannot be certain that they 
 would contain workable coal, yet. geologists are fully 
 justified in pointing to the whole chain of reasoning as 
 one that shows how pure science may have a direct 
 bearing on questions of the highest importance from a 
 most utilitarian point of view. 
 
 The section given as a frontispiece may serve to illus- 
 trate the occurrence of older rocks under the London 
 Basin, as well as to show the general lie of the beds 
 therein. It is but fair to state that the woodcut used 
 in the first three editions of this Gruide was made for a 
 Geological Survey Memoir published in 1864, when the 
 Kentish tTown boring was the only one in our district 
 that had parsed through the Chalk. 
 
24 UNDERGKOUND EOCKS. 
 
 The subject is treated at length in The Geology of 
 London, vol. i., and a detailed description of those deep 
 borings that are in our district will be found in vol. ii. 
 of that Memoir. 
 
 2. Gatjlt. 
 
 The formations below the Gault have been already 
 noticed in describing the deep wells that pass through 
 them, and therefore the stratigraphical account of the 
 beds of our district may begin with this formation, the 
 lowest that occurs almost universally, as far as we know, 
 in the London Basin. 
 
 The Gault is a bluish clay, often with interrupted 
 layers of small phosphatio nodules, and nearly always 
 with a marked layer of these at the base. 
 
 In the six wells that pass through it in our district 
 the Gault varies in thickness from 130 to 201 feet, and 
 these figures are not altered by including the wells at 
 Cheshunt, only just outside our boundary, at Ware and 
 at Chatham ; but just to the south, at Caterham, near 
 by its outcrop, it reaches the exceptional thickness of 
 over 340 feet. . 
 
 The Gault is a marine deposit, and from its evenness 
 of character leads one to infer a corresponding evenness 
 of deposition ; in other words, this clay seems to have 
 been deposited in a moderately deep, quiet sea, not 
 along a shore-line ; so that the tract with which we 
 are now concerned must have been wholly under water 
 at the time of its deposit, and most likely at some 
 distance from land. 
 
 3. Upper Greensand. 
 
 This formation has also been found in the deep borings 
 of our district, except in the one at Bushey, near 
 "Watford. Where thin it consists of a few feet of 
 clayey green sand, probably its upper member, as seen 
 at the outcrop ; the lower member (a sandstone, some- 
 times more or less calcareous) having thinned out, as also 
 happens on both the northern and southern outcrops in 
 going eastward. In those wells where a greater thick- 
 ness of this formation has been found, however.'the pale 
 green-grey sandstone, so characteristic along the outcrop 
 
CRETACEOUS BEDS. 25 
 
 on tlie south of London, chiefly occurs. It generally 
 passes upward into the Chalk Marl, the green grains 
 getting less and less in number, and the calcareous 
 matter getting more and more in quantity, so that often 
 there is no sharp plane of division between it and the 
 Chalk. 
 
 In the sections of the model the Upper Greensand has 
 been drawn of nearly uniform thickness (between 10 and 
 20 feet) as it was thought unlikely that it would vary 
 much within so comparatively small an area. The borings 
 since made, however, extend the thickness to nearly 30 
 feet, and to 40 feet just north of our border, at Cheshunt. 
 
 The Upper Grreensand is of marine origin, but has less 
 of the characters of a deep sea deposit than the under- 
 lying Gault, and indeed has been taken by some geolo- 
 gists to be the fringing shore-deposit of the Chalk Ocean. 
 It is sometimes sharply divided from the Gault, which 
 fact points to a break in the continuity of deposition : 
 sometimes, however, it passes down into the Gault, as 
 may be seen in some good sections along the southern 
 outcrop in the neighbourhood of Eeigate (just beyond 
 our district) where there is no marked line of division 
 from the Gault upward into the Chalk. 
 
 4. Chalk. 
 
 Composition cmd Origin. 
 
 Chalk is perhaps the best known rock in England. 
 It is essentially a soft white limestone, but contains beds 
 of a harder and more crystalline nature, and consists 
 almost wholly of carbonate of lime, though, in the lower 
 beds especially, with small quantities of silica and 
 alumina and traces of other matters. It is broadly 
 divided, in the south of England, into an upper member, 
 Chalk with flints, and a lower member, Chalk without 
 flints, the bottom and more clayey part of the latter 
 being known as Chalk Marl. In our district the Chalk 
 with flints alone occurs at the surface, except in parts 
 of the south-eastern corner, the lower beds being known 
 elsewhere only from well-sections, and then rarely, for 
 besides the seven deep borings already noticed (at Kentish 
 Town, Crossness, Meux's Brewery, Mann's Brewery, 
 Loughton, Cheshunt, and Richmond), I know of but 
 four others in the neighbourhood of London (within the 
 
26 CRETACEOUS BEDS. 
 
 limits of our map) tliat reach to the Lower Chalk, at 
 Bushey, Plumstead, Woolwicli, and Gra,ys Thurrock. 
 
 It is notable that in six of the wells above mentioned, 
 which alone pass through the Chalk from top to bottom 
 in our district, the variation in thickness of that forma- 
 tion is no more than from 623 to 671 feet, and this holds 
 if we include the one at Oheshunt, which is really just 
 beyond our border. This, however, does not take into 
 account the second Crossness boring, in which there is 
 some doubt as to the base of the Chalk. At its outcrop 
 both north and south, the Chalk seems to be thicker 
 than under London ; thus at Bushey 685 feet of it were 
 passed through, to which must be added a few feet, from 
 the topmost part not being present. 
 
 By its fossils the Chalk is proved to be the deposit of 
 a fairly deep sea, a deposit of much the same character 
 as that now forming in mid- Atlantic, and which, like the 
 Chalk, is largely composed of the remains of microscopic 
 animals {Forammifera, &c.). It has indeed been taught 
 that Chalk is often almost wholly composed of the 
 remains of Foraminifera ; but it has been, shown that 
 this rock is very largely made up of small fragments 
 of shells (notably Inoceramus) as well as of Echinoderms, 
 and that although sometimes Foraminifera are abundant, 
 yet, on the whole, the calcareous remains of the larger 
 animals mentioned make up the greater part of the 
 Chalk, which cannot therefore be truly said to be identi- 
 cal with Olobig&i'ina-ooze. 
 
 Amongst the chief fossils of the Chalk around London 
 are many species of Echinoidea, or sea-urchins^, chiefly 
 belonging to the genera Ananchytes, Gidaris, Oalerites., 
 and Micrdster, and besides these, two genera of bivalve 
 shells, InoGeramus and Spondylus, are common, and also' 
 two genera of Brachiopods, Bhynchonella and Terebratula. 
 Univalve shells, whether Cephalopods or Gasteropods, 
 are rare, especially the latter ; but besides the above, the 
 higher ranks of the animal kingdom are often represented 
 by the teeth of fish, and the lower ranks by Serpulce and 
 Corals. 
 
 Professor Hubert has divided the Chalk of France into 
 zones, from the prevalence of certain species of fossils 
 in definite horizons, and these palaeontological divisions 
 have been shown to hold good in England, The careful 
 collection and deitermination of fossils from special 
 
CRETACEOUS BEDS. 27 
 
 localities is a work mucli to be desired, and wtioh. cannot 
 fail to reward observers. In England tte Chalk is being 
 divided by tbe Geological Survey into Upper, Middle 
 and Lower, tbe two dividing lines being marked by the 
 occurrence of two peculiar hard beds, the Chalk Eock 
 and the Melbourn Eock. In some parts too the Chalk 
 Marl is separated from the overlying part of the Lower 
 Chalk, by the presence of another hard bed, the Tottern- 
 hoe Stone. 
 
 Mints. 
 
 The flints of the Upper Chalk have ever formed a 
 subject of speculation to geological inquirers. At one 
 time thought to be of purely mineral origin, at another 
 to have been deposited solely around organic matter, 
 they are now generally accounted for by a mean between 
 those two opinions ; for whereas there is no doubt that 
 the silica of which the flint is formed has very commonly 
 been deposited around the remains of animal or vegetable 
 organisms, whose substance, moreover, has often been 
 replaced by flint, yet there are other cases, notably the 
 more or less vertical or highly inclined layers that run 
 along joints in the Chalk, in which a purely mineral 
 origin is clear, the flint being simply deposited from 
 solution along those planes. Flint is thought indeed to 
 be formed by the slow replacement of amorphous car- 
 bonate of lime by silica, held in solution in water, and 
 this view harmonises with many facts, with regard not 
 only to the Chalk but to other calcareous formations that 
 contain siliceous masses. In many cases siliceous sponges 
 have aided in the formation of flint. 
 
 The flint in the Chalk occurs in two forms ; either as 
 irregular-shaped isolated nodules, mostly in definite planes, 
 but sometimes sparsely scattered, and often with an 
 organic centre ; or as continuous layers, mostly thin, 
 but sometimes half-a-foot thick. As a rule, the outer 
 coat of flint is white and the inside of a dark colour ; 
 but the white coating, though differing so much in look 
 from the rest, is really of the same composition, the 
 difference being caused simply by a molecular change in 
 the condition of the silica, the particles of which would 
 seem to have been rearranged through loi^g continued, 
 though partial, exposure to some external agencies. In 
 the tabular layers of flint, however, there are sometimes 
 
28 CRETACEOUS BEDS. 
 
 alternations of black and white layers witli some of the 
 latter internal, in wMcli case exposure would not account 
 for the difference. 
 
 A peculiar occurrence may be seen sometimes in flint, 
 but only, as far as I know, in a bed that is often found 
 at the, very top of the Chalk ; it is the breaking up (or 
 faulting on a small scale) of the flint, and the sub- 
 sequent rejoining of the slightly shifted pieces by fresh 
 infiltration of silica. This, together with the occurrence 
 of flint along joint-planes, planes which could not have 
 been produced until after the Chalk had become solid, 
 tends to show that the formation of flint in the Chalk is 
 not a process that was effected at one particular time, but 
 that it was gradual, and spread over a long period ; not 
 confined indeed to the age of the Chalk, but continued in 
 the Lower Tertiary age, and perhaps to the present time. 
 
 Water. 
 
 The Chalk is the chief source of water-supply for the 
 deep wells in the London district. Not very many years 
 ago the overlying Thanet Sand was the great water- 
 bearing bed, but its limited outcrop and small thickness 
 soon caused it to be unable to bear the greatly increasing 
 drain on it, and most London wells were then deepened, 
 new wells being almost universally carried into the 
 Chalk. Water flows through the joints and fissures in 
 the Chalk, besides being largely absorbed in the body of 
 the rock, and it seems to be got in wells chiefly in the 
 fissures, which allow more or less communication. There 
 is, however, some uncertainty in this source of supply, 
 water sometimes being found in plenty, but at others, 
 when the Chalk is thickly covered by Tertiary beds, 
 hardly at all. There seems also to be a communication 
 between the waters of the Chalk and of the Tertiary 
 beds, the chemical analyses of waters from wells in 
 Chalk only being different from analyses of waters from 
 deep wells, through the Tertiary beds. 
 
 From the general troughed form into which the Chalk 
 has been thrown, in the formation of the very slight 
 hollow of the London Basin, it follows that its out- 
 crop is in the main at a much higher level than its 
 underground extension beneath the Tertiary beds, and 
 therefore, when wells are sunk through these latter to 
 
CRETACEOUS BEDS. 29 
 
 the Chalk, the water tends to rise, although rarely to 
 such a height as to form a true Artesian, or overflowing, 
 well. Such wells, however, do occur in some of the low 
 grounds of the valleys of the Thames, the Wandle, and 
 the Lea, but there seems to have been a gradual lower- 
 ing of the water-level in the Chalk under London, in 
 consequence of the increase in the number of wells and 
 in the quantity of water drawn from them. 
 
 The great fault of the water from Chalk and other 
 limestones is hardness, that is, the containing a quantity 
 of bicarbonate of lime, derived from the calcareous 
 rock through the carbonic acid contained in water. 
 In some waterworks, as at Caterham and Canterbury, 
 the hardness is got rid of by what is known as Dr. 
 Clark's process ; this is the at first sight .paradoxical 
 addition of more lime (in the form of lime-water), the 
 result of which is that the carbonic acid in solution 
 in the water (as bicarbonate of lime) combines with the 
 lime, forming normal carbonate of lime, which, being 
 insoluble, falls to the bottom, together with that already 
 in the water (resulting from the abstraction of carbonic 
 acid from the bicarbonate), and thus nearly the whole 
 of the lime is got rid of. The process is extremely neat, 
 and the arrangements for carrying it out are well worthy 
 of inspection by all interested in water-supply from the 
 Chalk. The largest works of the sort are at the new 
 Southampton Waterworks. 
 
 Attempts have been made to get water from below 
 the Chalk in the neighbourhood of London, some geo- 
 logists and engineers being much impressed with the 
 idea that in order to get a large supply nothing is to be 
 done but to tap the Lower Greensand. These attempts 
 have been mostly failures, the Lower Greensand having 
 generally been conspicuous by its absence. Should that 
 formation, however, be present, I doubt whether it can 
 be relied on for the large supply usually put to its credit, 
 for it is not only thinner than the Chalk, but has also a 
 much smaller outcrop, and therefore a much less catch- 
 ment-area. Moreover, some of the deep borings above 
 described show a thinning of the Lower Greensand under- 
 ground, toward the inner part of the London Basin, 
 sometimes, indeed, to the extent of total absence : this 
 formation cannot therefore be counted on for water- 
 supply at any great distance from its outcrop, and the 
 
30 CRETACEOUS BEDS. 
 
 Chalk remains the only source for a very large supply 
 from wells in many parts of the Basin. 
 
 Features and Scenery. 
 
 In our district the Chalk has little of those bold features 
 that commonly characterise it, for, with the exception 
 of little more than a mile in the south-eastern comer, 
 we do not reach to the escarpment, that marked range 
 of hill with which this formation ends off both on the 
 north and on the south ; moreover, in the area included 
 in the map of " London and its Environs," the Chalk is 
 to a very great extent covered with deposits of clay, 
 loam, and gravel, of comparatively late age, which, 
 capping the higher parts, give the whole a more or less 
 wooded character, distinct from the bare open downs of 
 uncovered chalk. 
 
 In Surrey, however, near Epsom and Croydon, are 
 some delightful spreads of downs, with the usual soft 
 turf that grows on the dry but never parched Chalk, 
 and here and there with evergreen clusters of the shrubs 
 that love the same soil. Riddlesdown (near the Cater- 
 ham Junction Railway Station) is a good example of 
 these ; but the plough is slowly invading hitherto undis- 
 turbed tracts of grassland, and changing the aspect of 
 the surface, not for the better as far as scenery is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 In the north-western comer of our district, in Bucks, 
 and Herts, there is absolutfely no downlahd, and the 
 greater part of the tract consists of ploughed land 
 diversified by woods and parks. The same too, is the 
 case in Kent, at the south-eastern corner. Although 
 some of the most striking characters of Chalk scenery 
 are absent, yet there are many good points ; for we have 
 the usual undulating country, with its constant succes- 
 sion of hill and valley ; and the main valleys with their 
 streams give many a rich and pleasant view. 
 
 At "Windsor, where the Chalk comes to the surface 
 through an elevation of the beds (by means of which it 
 has been brought up within reach of eroding agents) 
 it has been cut through by the Thames, which has left 
 a good example of a sharply -sloping river-cliff, in the 
 hill on which the Castle stands. This cliff, though of 
 no great height in itself (about 100 feet), forms a marked 
 
CRETACEOUS BEDS. 31 
 
 object in tlie landscape, because its abruptly denuded 
 face is in sharp contrast with the river-flat and the 
 gravel-plain on the north. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 On the north-west there are few remarkable sections 
 of the Chalk, the finest being a large pit close to the 
 Colne just above Harefield, north of Uxbridge, where 
 some huge pipes of gravel are to be seen in the Chalk. 
 At Watford the Chalk is shown beneath Glacial brick- 
 earth, in a pit close to the Bushey Railway Station, and 
 irregularly overlain by Glacial gravel in the railway- 
 cutting northward of the town. 
 
 On the south there are pits at Sutton, in Surrey. At 
 a pit near Purley Farm, south of Croydon, a water- worn 
 boulder of granitic rock was found in the Chalk, with 
 some smaller pieces of other igneous rocks ; and small 
 pebbles of various rocks have been found in the Chalk 
 near Gravesend. There is also a large pit at Caterham 
 Junction Eailway Station. 
 
 On the south-east, there are many large pits east- 
 ward of London, where the flinty Chalk may be well 
 seen, — near Lewisham, Charlton, Dartford, Greenhithe, 
 Northfleet, and Gravesend, in Kent, and at Purfleet, 
 West Thurrock, Grays, and Stifford, in Essex, most of 
 which places have yielded fossils, as also have the pits 
 in the ihlier at Camden Park, between Bromley and 
 Chiselhurst. 
 
 The railway- cutting S.E. of Shoreham, in the Darent 
 valley, shows the junction of the Chalk with flints and 
 that without, being, I believe, the only section of the 
 latter in our district. 
 
 Those sections where the Chalk may be seen capped 
 by Eocene Tertiary beds are noted in the lists at pp. 37, 
 41. For a fuller account of the Chalk near London, the 
 reader is referred to Yol. IV. of the Geological Survey 
 Memoirs, pp. 21-26, and to the Geology of London, pp. 
 77, 79-85. 
 
32 
 
 CHAPTER 3. 
 EOCENE TERTIAEY FORMATIONS. 
 LOWER LONDON TERTIARIES. 
 
 1. General Description. 
 
 It has sometimes been inferred, on palseontologioal 
 grounds, that the Chalk next under the Tertiary beds 
 near London is not the highest part of the formation, 
 but might be classed as belonging to a lower zone of 
 the Upper Chalk rather than to its topmost member. 
 The very even way in which the Tertiary beds come on 
 above the Chalk in all good sections seems, however, some- 
 what against this view, as it is hard to suppose that a 
 considerable thickness of Chalk should have been so 
 evenly eroded away over a large area before the de- 
 position of the lowest Tertiary beds. Nevertheless, there 
 is so great a change at the junction of the two forma- 
 tions, both in mineral character and in forms of life, that 
 we are led to conclude that great time must have passed 
 between the deposition and consolidation of the Chalk 
 and the beginning of our Tertiary epoch. The change 
 from a deep sea, with its regular deposit of limestone, to 
 a shallow sea and estuary, with alternating deposits of 
 sands, clays, and shingle, could hardly have taken place 
 except during a very long period ; yet I am not sure 
 but that there has been a tendency to exaggerate its 
 length. 
 
 As will be pointed out further on, there is evidence 
 that the very topmost part of the Chalk has been dis- 
 solved away by underground water, after the deposition 
 of the beds above; so that it is possible that in the 
 course of this process some slight irregularities in the 
 junction may have been effaced, although others (pipes) 
 have been formed under different conditions. 
 
LOWEE LONDON TERTIAEIES. 33 
 
 The term Lower London Tertiaries is applied to 
 the comparatively thin but varying set of beds between 
 the London Clay and the Chalk. At one time massed 
 under the name of Plastic Clay Series, they were thought 
 to be a perfectly irregular mixture of sands, clays, and 
 pebble-beds, often marked by the occurrence of richly 
 coloured mottled plastic clay. But this name is now 
 discarded, for like mottled clay occurs in other Tertiary 
 formations, as well as in "Wealden beds, and because such 
 clay is in the present case confined to the middle part of 
 the series. The researches of Prof. Prestwich, moreover, 
 have shown that these beds are not the irregular mixture 
 that was once supposed ; but that they have a certain 
 order amongst themselves, although that order is not 
 everywhere apparent, from the fact that the series is not 
 generally complete at one spot. 
 
 The comparison of a large number of sections has 
 resulted in the threefold division of the group, the 
 middle member being the most changeful in structure, 
 but by far the most constant in occurrence, and indeed 
 very rarely wanting, whilst tlie upper and lower mem- 
 bers, but especially the upper, are more local, though of 
 much more uniform character. To each of these divi- 
 sions a local name has been given ; to the lowest that 
 of Thanet Beds, from its being the only old Tertiary 
 formation in the Isle of Thanet ; to the middle that of 
 Woolwich and Eeading Beds, from its occurrence in 
 two very different conditions in the neighbourhood of 
 those places ; and to the upper that of Oldhaven Beds, 
 from the good section of it at Oldhaven Gap, near the 
 Reculvers. For the purpose, however, of a description 
 of the neighbourhood of London, Blackheath would 
 better give a " local habitation and a name," and indeed 
 the compound term Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds 
 may be used with advantage, as the composition is 
 different in the east and in the west. 
 
 Before going on to the description of each of these 
 divisions of the Lower London Tertiaries, I may remark 
 that whilst an observer unskilled in geology could 
 hardly fail to know Chalk in whatever part of England 
 he might see it, with these bed's it is very different. In 
 the least varying division, the Thanet Beds, a good 
 observer, who had not worked at this particular subject, 
 would fail to recognise thfe greater part of the sandy 
 marls and sands of East Kent as holding the same 
 
 U 60515. n 
 
34 LOWEE LONDON TERTIARIES. 
 
 position as the tuifossiliferous sands of West Kent, 
 Surrey, ;&c., except from seeing tb em next above the 
 Chalk in all cases ; neither could he tell that the fine 
 sharp sand of the Oldhaven Beds in East Kent was the 
 same thing, geologically speaking, as the pebble-bed of 
 Blackheath, &c., except from seeing both next under- 
 lying the London Clay. With regard, however, to the 
 Woolwich and Reading Beds, no geologist could for a 
 moment venture, were he suddenly transported from 
 the west of London to the north-western corner of Kent, 
 and then to theeastern part of the same county, to assert 
 that the unfossiliferous variously coloured mottled clays 
 and sands of the first tract, the thinly bedded clays and 
 sands of the secondj with estuarine shells, and the sand 
 with marine fossils of the last, were all parts of one 
 and the same series, dovetailing into and replacing one 
 another, though for the most part occurring separately ; 
 yet a careful tracing of the beds along their western and 
 southern outcrop, from end to end of the London Basin, 
 has proved that such is the case. Along the northern 
 outcrop the Reading type alone occurs. 
 
 Thin though they may be, therefore, these Lower 
 London Tertiaries have an interest to the geologist 
 greater, .perhaps, than that of the thicker masses of the 
 overlying and^ underlying formations^ though these have 
 afforded long suites of fossils ; for whilst the latter speak 
 to us of long-continued even deposit, and almost wholly 
 of marine conditions, the former give evidence of shifting 
 and changing, of shores and currents, of river-deltas, and 
 of neighbouring land. 
 
 Although the junction of the Lower London Tertiaries 
 with the. Ghalk ife seen to be even in those sections that 
 show a good thickness . of the former, yet where these 
 beds are thin, and therefore have more readily allowed 
 access of water to the Ghalk, they often come on much 
 more irregularly, filling pipes, or irregular funnel-shaped 
 hollows, in the Chalk. This uneven junction must not, 
 however, be taken as evidence of unconformity, for it 
 is not owing to the wearing away of the Chalk before 
 the deposition of the beds above, but to its having been 
 irregularly dissolved aWay by the chemical action of 
 infiltrating water, holding carbonic acid in solution, 
 long after the deposition of those overlying beds, which 
 have consequently been let down into the irregular 
 cavities thus formed; 
 
LOWER LONDON TERTIAlilES. 35 
 
 2. Thanbt Beds. 
 
 Striichire and Range. 
 
 ■■ In the neighbourliood of London the structure of this 
 lowest member of the Tertiary series is very simple, for 
 it consists almost wholly of fine soft sand, very pale 
 grey or bufi", slightly clayey, and very compact^ so that 
 it stands upright in section ; it is without pebbles, false- 
 bedding, or other signs of current-action or of shore, and 
 it is essentially unf ossiliferous ; but from the character 
 of the fossils further eastward, and from the very few 
 indistinct traces that have been found in our district, it 
 is inferred to be a marine deposit. The lowest part, 
 for a thickness of a few feet, is more clayey, and so full 
 of green grains as to form a regular green sand or 
 glauconite-sand, and at the very bottom there is a layer 
 of flints, for the most part unworn and in the same state 
 as in their parent rock (the Chalk), except for their 
 dark green coating. 
 
 From the unworn character of these flints it is inferred 
 that they have not been derived from the Chalk by 
 mechanical erosion before the deposition of the Thanet 
 Beds, but rather by the chemical dissolving away of the 
 Chalk (by carbonated water) from beneath the Thanet 
 Beds, a process that would leave the insoluble flints 
 behind. Whilst, therefore, the infiltration of water 
 through mei'ely a few feet of these beds gives rise to an 
 uneven surface and to pipes, the same process, when it 
 goes on at greater depths, seems to act in a more equal 
 (because in a more constant) way on the surface of the 
 Chalk, leaving it even. 
 
 The Thanet Sand thins out westward and northward 
 of London, as is shown by the outcrop in Surrey, where 
 it has been traced only as far as Leatherhead (just beyond 
 the edge of the London Map), and by well-sections. 
 
 From Epsom the outcrop runs, at a comparatively 
 low level, by the line of villages to Croydorii ' the sand 
 thickening from about 15 feet at the former place to 
 more than twice as much near the latter. It then runs 
 along the flank of the hills by Addington, Keston, and 
 Farnborough, and then along the left side of the valley 
 of the Cray to Bexley, whence a large irregular- shaped 
 
 2 
 
36 LOWEE LONDON TERTIABIES. 
 
 spur stretches south-ward for some miles. From Cray'- 
 ford the outcrop again runs along the flank of the hills, 
 first northward to Erith, and then westward, along the 
 valley of the Thames, to Deptford, the sand being 
 throughout this course about 40 to 50 feet thick. 
 
 The Thanet Sand is hidden under the Alluvium, &c., 
 of the Thames, but on the other side of the river, in 
 Essex, it crops out again north of Purfleet, and runs 
 eastward by Stifford to beyond Little Thurrock. 
 
 Besides these outcrops there are small inliers in 
 the valleys at Bromley, Chiselhurst, and Eltham, in 
 Kent, where the beds have been brought up by slight 
 local disturbance, so that subsequent denudation has 
 laid bare lower formations than would otherwise have 
 been seen at the surface. 
 
 Scattered over the south-eastern Chalk-tract there 
 are may outliers, or disconnected masses of Thanet 
 Sand, that have been separated by denudation from the 
 main mass, and which, left as landmarks of the former 
 extent of the bed, serve also as signs of the erosion 
 that it must have undergone, as all must once have 
 been connected together with each other, and with the 
 main mass. The largest of these are at Well Hill, the 
 hill east of the Grays, the hills between Swanley and 
 Earningham, and the hills S.W. of Swanscomb, in Kent, 
 and north of Grays, in Essex ; the rest range downward 
 in size to no more than large pipes in the Chalk, 
 though some are well-marked small hills. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 Over the tract just noticed there is as a rule no dearth 
 of sections, the Thanet Sand being indeed noted for its 
 pretty deeply-cut lanes ; besides these, however, there 
 are many clearer and larger sections, both in railway- 
 cuttings and in chalk-pits, some of the largest of the 
 latter having been opened in parts where the Chalk is 
 capped by Thanet Sand. I have thought it best to name 
 some of the best or most accessible of these in a tabular 
 form. 
 
LOWER LONDON TERTIARIES. 
 
 37 
 
 i'laces where the Thanet Sand may be well seen. 
 
 (See also Sections of the Woolwioh and Reading 
 
 Beds, p. 41.) 
 
 Showing the 
 
 Junction 
 
 with the 
 
 Chalk. " 
 
 Showing the 
 Junction 
 with the 
 Woolwich 
 
 and Reading 
 Beds. 
 
 Surrey. 
 
 Epsom. — Gutting on the South Eastern Eail- 
 way, N.E. of the station, brickyard close by, 
 and brickyard halfway on the road to 
 Ewell - . - . . 
 
 Beddington. — Road- cuttings. 
 
 Croydon. — Pit in Combe Lane, and railway- 
 cutting on the west 
 
 The new railway-cutting on the east showed 
 this sand, as well as the Blackheath Beds, 
 and the Woolwich' and Reading Beds ; but I 
 fear that it is not now open to view. 
 
 Kent. 
 
 Chiselhurst. — Chalk-pits in Camden Park, &c. 
 St. Mary's Cray. — Cuttings on the London 
 
 Chatham & Dover Railway 
 Swanley Station. — Gutting on the London 
 
 Chatham & Dover Railway 
 Cray ford. — Chalk-pit at the great brickyard - 
 Erith. — Chalk-pit at the great brickyard (not 
 
 now worked) . - - - 
 
 Erith. — Sand-pit by the railway-station 
 Abbey Wood.; — Road-cutting (to station) 
 Plumstead. — Chalk-pit in the Wickham Valley 
 Pltimstead. — Road-cutting, Bostal Heath 
 Plumstead. — Sand-pit S.E. of Plumstead 
 
 Common - - . - - 
 
 Woolwich. — Large pits, S. of dockyard, and 
 
 E. of Charlton Station - - . 
 
 Lewisham. — Brickyard at Loam Pit Hill 
 Dartford. — Chalk-pit at E. of town - 
 Darent. — Road-cutting E. of village - 
 Gravesend. — Brickyard, W. of Mt. Pleasant - 
 
 Essex. ' 
 
 Purfleet.— Chalk-pit - 
 
 West Thurrock. — Chalk-pit for Cement 
 Works .... 
 
 Gray's Thurrock. — Chalk-pits 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 X 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 X 
 X 
 
 Details of these sections and notes of others will be found in The 
 Geology of London, pp. 109-120. 
 
38 lowek london tertiakies. 
 
 3. Woolwich and Reading Beds. 
 
 Range. 
 
 The middle division of tlie Lower London Tertiaries 
 has a wider range than either of the others, being, indeed, 
 constant in its occurrence between the Chalk and the 
 London Clay, except in the very few spots where for a 
 short distance the overlying Oldhaven Beds have scooped 
 through it, whereas the other divisions are far more 
 local, cropping out only (in our district) on the south 
 and east of London. 
 
 From Epsom, on the south, the outcrop follows that 
 of the Thanet Beds to the valley of the Cray, which, 
 however, it does not cross, and then along the valley of 
 the Thames to Dulwich and the southern part of London 
 (Oamberwell, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe), where it is 
 hidden by the gravel and alluvium of the Thames, from 
 beneath which it again shows on the Essex side of the 
 river, following the Thanet Sand from "Wennington 
 eastward by Aveley to beyond Stifford. 
 
 The thickness along the above outcrop' is variable, 
 amounting sometimes to 50 feet, but being geiierally much 
 less, and the outcrop is mostly of a more irregular 
 character than that of the underlying Thanet Sand, 
 in some places very narrow, in others comparatively 
 broad, and often cut back by small valleys. 
 
 At Bromley and at Chiselhurst these beds are brought 
 up, with the Thanet Sand, as inliers, and they also occur 
 as outliers, partly on the main mass of the Thanet Sand, 
 and partly on its outliers. The most conspicuous of 
 these are of the latter class, at "Well HUl, Jerden's Wood, 
 (east of the Cray), and Swanscomb Park Wood. 
 
 West and north-west of London the Reading Beds are 
 brought up to the surface at Windsor, by the distur- 
 bance through which the Chalk appears there, and 
 thence they seem to run northward (by the margin of 
 the London Map), through a gravel-covered tract to 
 Hedgerley, whence the outcrop has a very irregular 
 course to the Colne. They then roughly follow the 
 course of that river from the north of Uxbridge along 
 the flank of the hills north-eastward, but are sometimes 
 cut back southward along small side-valleys. On this 
 northern outcrop, where the Reading Beds rest at once 
 
LOWER LONDON TERTIARIES. 39 
 
 on the Chalk, they are rarely 40 feet thick, but a greater 
 thickness is found in many of the wells sunk through the 
 London Clay south-eastward, which show the continuity 
 of the series underground. There is also an inlier at 
 Pinner, brought about by a line of disturbance that 
 seems to extend for some miles, and there are outliers 
 over the Chalk-tract, which prove the former continuation 
 of the beds northward, the most notable being north of 
 Hedgerley, near Chalfont St. Griles and St. Peter, and 
 west of E/ickmansworth. 
 
 Structure and Fossils* 
 
 Though so constant in their presence the Woolwich 
 and Eeadiag Beds are most inconstant in composition, 
 at one place consisting almost wholly of sand, at another 
 of clay, and elsewhere of alternations of the two, with 
 occasional pebble-beds, the colours of the component 
 parts being also very variable. The only constant part 
 is a bed of more or less clayey green sand at the bottom, 
 which, when resting on the Thanet Sand, contains flint 
 pebbles, but when on the Chalk contains green-coated 
 flints also (at the base), probably owing to the same sort 
 of action that may have produced the like bed at the base 
 of the Thanet Sand. 
 
 We have here two types of the series, those that have 
 respectively given the names Woolwich and Read- 
 ing to it. Of these the former, which occurs only in 
 the south-eastern part of our district, is marked by the 
 presence of laminated clay, full of shells along the fre- 
 quent lines of bedding, those shells being of estuarine 
 character and chiefly belonging to the genera GeritMv/m, 
 Melania, Melanopsis, and Paludina, amongst Gaste- 
 ropods (Univalves), and to Gyrena, Ostrea, and Unio, 
 amongst Oonchifera (Bivalves). In some places, indeed, 
 there are layers made up of oyster- shells, and in others 
 of crushed shells ' (chiefly Gyrenoe), whilst sometimes 
 there are sandy as well as clayey shell-beds. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of London these shell-beds are 
 not found westward -of Croydon, but from there they 
 occur throughout the range that has been described, 
 eastward, and northward, being often accompanied by a 
 
 * Readers wishing for figures of the 'commoner fossils of the district 
 are referred to JJowry's excellent " Chart of Tertiary Fossils," 
 
40 LOWER LONDON TEETIARIES. 
 
 thin layer of black carbonaceous clay, sometimes an 
 impure lignite. They must have been deposited at or 
 near the mouths of streams, -which are inferred to have 
 flowed from land to the south, perhaps from the tract 
 now known as the Weald, which at that long-distant 
 time, of course, had been far less eroded than at present. 
 
 The shell-beds are associated with beds of sand, and 
 they do not occur to the exclusion of the other type of 
 the series, but are sometimes found to dovetail into or 
 alternate with the mottled clays. Near Lewisham the 
 top part of the Woolwich Beds consist of a mass of finely 
 laminated sand and clay, in which impressions of leaves 
 have been found. 
 
 In Surrey, west of Guildford, and • along the north- 
 western outcrop in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, 
 the other or Reading type occurs exclusively. It is 
 unfossihf erous, and characterised by the presence of soapy 
 mottled plastic clay, of various and often rich colours, 
 some shade of red generally showing ; but sand is mostly 
 present also, and sometimes with pebbles. At the northern 
 margin of the district, between Aldenham and Shenley, 
 there is a regular pebble-bed, hardened into stone of just 
 the same kind as the blocks of the well-known Hert- 
 fordshire pudding-stone, which are found so commonly 
 over the Chalk-tract beyond, and were indeed most 
 likely derived from this bed. 
 
 In many wells in and near London both the shelly 
 and the mottled clays are found together, and the same 
 thing occurs in places along the southern outcrop, from 
 Croydon eastward, proving that both are parts of the 
 same series. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 In the accompanying table the most accessible of the 
 sections are noticed, with the general nature of the beds 
 in each. There are many more, in brickyards, railway- 
 cuttings, and road-cuttings, but either of less importance 
 or more difficult to see, and sometimes much overgrown. 
 
 The pits at Woolwich, Charlton, and Lewisham are 
 amongst the best known sections in the kingdom, and 
 very large. 
 
 For details the reader is referred to The Geology of 
 London, pp. 126-170, 172-175, 179, 180, 189-202, 
 206, 207. 
 
41 
 
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42 LOWER LONDON TEBTIAKIES. 
 
 4. Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds. 
 
 8tructv/re, Range, and Fossils. 
 
 Near Londoli this uppermost member of the Lower 
 London Tertiaries consists mostly of a pebble-bed of 
 perfectly -rolled flint pebbles, in a base of fine, sharp, 
 light-coloured sand ; but sometimes there is also like 
 sand without pebbles, or with but few. The pebble-bed 
 is often false-bedded, and sometimes hardened into a 
 conglomerate, and there are occasionally thin layers of 
 clay in the sand. The thickness varies up to about 50 
 feet, but it is liable to rather sudden changes. 
 
 At some places there are no fossils, whilst at others 
 either pebble-bed or sand is full of shells, the prevailing 
 univalves being Galyptroea, Gerithmm, Fusus, Melania, 
 NaUca, and Neritina, and the bivalves Gardvwm, Gyrena, 
 Ostrea, and Pectunculus; there are also sharks' teeth. 
 From these names it will be seen that marine and es- 
 tuarine conditions both occur, some of the shells being 
 of the same kind as those of the Woolwich Beds beneath, 
 whilst others are like those of the London Clay above, 
 and therefore we conclude that the deposit is one 
 formed in a changeful area of sea invaded by fresher 
 water, and the reverse, whether by changes of level or 
 of currents. Opinions have indeed varied as to whether 
 these beds should be classed with the London Clay or 
 with the Woolwich Beds : it is safer therefore to treat 
 them independently of either. 
 
 The state of the flint-pebbles is also remarkable, for 
 in all of them the process of rounding is complete, and 
 we do not find the intermediate stages between the 
 broken angular flint and the perfect pebble, as we see 
 in our present shingle-beaches. From this we may infer 
 that the pebbles must have been deposited at some dis- 
 tance from their parent rock, and not as beaches along 
 a Chalk shore. 
 
 Though the Blackheath Beds sometimes rest evenly 
 on the Woolwich Beds, yet they often cut into the latter 
 in such a way as to show erosion, which in a few cases 
 has, indeed, gone so far as to obliterate the Woolwich 
 Beds altogether for a short distance, as on parts of the 
 flank of the Addington Hills, at Sanderstead, and at a 
 spot near Chiselhurst Railway Station, where the Black- 
 heath Beds rest at once on the Thanet Sand. Further 
 south, indeed (near Caterham), a little beyond the tract 
 
LOWER LONDON TERTIATiTES. 43 
 
 represented on the " London Map," there are outliers of 
 the pebble^bed resting at once on the Chalk, the whole 
 of the beds between having been eroded away, and 
 apparently much of the Chalk also, leading one to infer 
 that the pebbles have been derived from the flints of 
 this southern Chalk, and that the erosion of the Chalk 
 from off the Wealden District may have begun in early 
 Tertiary times. 
 
 It is remarkable that the pebbles are almost without 
 exception of flint from the Chalk, even a solitary quartz- 
 pebble being of very rare occurrence ; so that the deposit 
 bears witness to the great wearing away of the upper 
 part of the Chalk that must have taken place in these 
 early Tertiary ages. The same, too, may be remarked of 
 the thinner and less important occasional pebble-beds 
 in the underlying "Woolwich and Reading Beds, the 
 destruction of which, indeed, may have helped to a 
 slight extent in the formation of these larger masses. 
 The lowest division (the Thanet Sand), however, very 
 rarely contains a pebble, and therefore we conclude that 
 the great degradation of the Chalk took place after it 
 had been deposited. 
 
 The southerly boundary of the Blackheath Beds, the 
 least constant of the three divisions of the Lower London 
 Tertiaries, runs from Croydon eastward, following 
 irregularly the boundary of the Woolwich Beds to Farn- 
 borough ; its easterly boundary runs irregularly near 
 the top of the hills forming the left side of the valley of 
 the Cray to Bexley, and thence to Belvidere ; on the 
 north it ends off along the hills forming the right bank 
 of the Thames Valley, thence westward to Blackheath, 
 and on the west its outcrop from beneath the London 
 Clay has an irregular course from the west of Bltham 
 by the north of Bromley and Beckenham, to Croydon. 
 
 Over the tract thus bounded the Blackheath Beds are 
 not however always at the surface, for there are large 
 spurs of London Clay, as at Shooter's Hill, and outliers 
 of the same, as in the neighbourhood of Bromley, besides 
 occasional outcrops of lower beds ; yet there are many 
 broad tracts of the pebble-beds, as near Addington, at 
 Hayes Common and Bromley, from Bexley Heath to 
 Abbey Wood, and at Blackheath. 
 
44 
 
 LOWER LONDON TEKTIARIES. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 Over the broader outcrops just described there are 
 many pits and road-side sections, besides -which railway- 
 cuttings, which in most cases have been recorded but 
 cannot now be clearly seen, have yielded much informa- 
 tion about this series. In the table only the more acces- 
 sible and the most interesting open sections are named, 
 but of these the majority do not show a junction either 
 with the overlying or underlying beds,, see however the 
 table on p. 41. 
 
 Place of Section of the Blackheath Beds. 
 
 Nature of the Beds. 
 
 Surrey. 
 
 
 Croydon. — Brickyard at Selliurst (junction 
 
 Sand. 
 
 with London Clay). 
 
 
 Croydon. — Shirley sand-pits 
 
 Sand, with layers of clay 
 
 
 and pebbles. 
 
 Kent. 
 
 
 Beckenham. — Cutting E. of station 
 
 Masses of hard conglo- 
 
 
 merate may be seen. 
 
 Beckenham. — Pit north of railway-station - 
 
 Pebble-bed and fossilife- 
 
 
 rous conglomerate. 
 
 Bromley. — Cutting at railway -station 
 
 Pebble-bed and sand. 
 
 Bromley. — Widmore Kiln (junction with 
 
 Sand and laminated loam 
 
 London Clay). 
 
 with remains of leaves.* 
 
 Bromley.^Widmore, gravel-pits 
 
 Pebble-bed. 
 
 Bromley. — Sundridge Park Rock-pit 
 
 Shelly pebble-bed and 
 
 
 sandjhardened into stone. 
 
 Eltham.— Pit at the south-eastern corner cf 
 
 Sand and pebble-bed. 
 
 the Park. 
 
 
 Northumberland Heath, S.W. of Erith.— 
 
 Sand and pebble-bed. 
 
 Pits. 
 
 
 Erith. — Sand-pit by railway-station, further 
 
 Pebble-bed, with small 
 
 end. 
 
 hollow of London Clay 
 
 
 above. 
 
 Bostal Heath, E. of Plumstead.— Pit 
 
 Pebble-bed. 
 
 Plumstead Common. — Pit at the south-eastern 
 
 Pebble-bed. 
 
 corner (junction with Woolwich Beds). 
 
 
 Plumstead Common. — Old pit on the west - 
 
 Pebble-bed and conglo- 
 
 
 merate. 
 
 Woolwich. — ^Pits S. of dockyard and N. of 
 
 Shelly pebble-bed. 
 
 Charlton (junction with Woolwich Beds). 
 
 
 Blaekheath.— Pits - 
 
 Pebble-bed. 
 
 For details of these sections and notes of others, see 7%e Geology of 
 London, pp. 216-234. 
 
 * There is some doubt whether these beds should not he classed with the 
 Woolwich Series, being of the same character as the leaf-bed of Loam Pit Hill. 
 5eeTable, p. 41. 
 
LOWER LONDON TERTI ARIES. 45 
 
 5. Features and Scenery. 
 
 From the varying nature, and composition of the 
 Lower London Tertiaries, the effect they have on the 
 surface is of course variable also. 
 
 In Surrey, from Epsom to Croydon, they make but a 
 very slight feature, occurring as they do between the 
 great dip-slope of the Chalk on the south and the low 
 hills of London Clay on the north. Eastward, however, 
 the series is more perfect, and as a rule thicker, and its 
 escarpment or bounding ridge is a marked feature in 
 the landscape froin Croydon to Farnborough, rising well 
 above the Chalk in the immediate neighbourhood, vary- 
 ing in height according to its extent southward (or up 
 the dip-slope of the Chalk), and mostly covered with 
 masses of fir. After ascending the sharp rise of the 
 escarpment, we find a much gentler slope in the other 
 direction (northward with the dip of the beds), which 
 very often consists of open commons or heaths, plenti- 
 fully decked with gorse and heath, and sometimes with 
 broom, plants that grow freely on the Blackheath pebble- 
 bed, as on the Addington Hills and at Hayes Common. 
 
 From Farnborough north-eastward, the Lower London 
 Tertiaries form the more or less wooded hills of the left 
 side of the valley of the Cray, and near Bexley those of 
 the right side also ; the outcrop of the more clayey 
 "Woolwich Beds giving rise to moist ground and to 
 springs, thrown out from the permeable pebble-beds and 
 sand above, which of course form a dry tract, as also 
 does the Thanet Sand below. 
 
 Along the valley of the Thames the sharply-sloping 
 wooded ridge from Brith to Greenwich is the more 
 marked an object in the landscape from the contrast 
 aff"orded by the broad alluvial flat at its base, whilst the 
 level tracts of the pebble-beds along the top of the hills, 
 nearly 200 feet above the marshes, are brought out by 
 the mass of London Clay that rises above them on either 
 side, to form Shooter's Hill. 
 
 These tracts, from their generally good natural drain- 
 age, from the quiet beauty of their scenery, and from 
 
46 LOWER LONDON TEBTIARIES. 
 
 tte ricliness of some of the soils, are well populated, 
 and have been largely annexed by Londoners for resi- 
 dence, for wbicli they are so well fitted, especially the 
 highly permeable pebble-beds. No place gives so good 
 an example, perhaps, of the varied scenery of the Lower 
 London Tertiaries of Kent as the beautiful village of 
 Chiselhurst, with its commons, parks, woods, and hop- 
 gardens, to my mind the loveliest spot near London. 
 
 On the left side of the Thames, in Essex, this series 
 makes but little show, owing partly to the occurrence of 
 gravel, hiding the beds below and effacing their features, 
 and partly to slight disturbance, through which the 
 northerly dip is somewhat increased in places ; for it is 
 the rule with the soft Tertiary beds that the prominence 
 of their surface-features varies inversely as the amount 
 of their dip, so that where they are flat, or nearly so, 
 there they make the most marked hills. Two of the 
 best instances of this may be noticed, though both out 
 of our district : one is near Famham, where the lowest 
 Tertiary beds make little outward sign, and dip at a high 
 angle ; whilst further north, where the dip lessens, the 
 Bagshot Beds form a sharp ridge : the other is in the 
 Isle of Wight, where all the beds, from the Chalk to the 
 Bagshot Beds inclusive, are vertical, or nearly so, and 
 the Tertiary sands and clays make no feature, whilst as 
 the dip lessens northward a slight rise occurs, and at 
 last the flat beds of Headon Hill are well marked. 
 
 On the north-west, where the Eeading Beds alone are 
 present, there is but a narrow outcrop, often moist and 
 springy, along the flank of the hills, the base of the 
 slope consisting of Chalk and the upper part of London 
 Clay, to which last the main feature of the escarpment 
 is due. 
 
 Some of the outliers of the Lower London Tertiaries 
 are wooded hills rising well above the surrounding Chalk, 
 and conspicuous at long distances, as at Well Hill (near 
 Chelsfield) and Farningham Wood, the former consisting 
 of the lower two divisions and the latter of all the three. 
 The much smaller mass of Oroham Hurst, south of 
 Croydon (called Combe Hill on the map), which consists 
 of the upper and lower divisions, is another case, and so 
 is the little fir-capped mound of Thanet Sand above 
 
LOWER LONDON TBRTIAKIES. 47 
 
 Purfleet, and the larger mass above Grrays, which, from 
 the great clearness of their position, can be well made 
 out miles ofp. The large Swanscomb outlier owes its 
 prominence, to a great extent, to the cappings of London 
 Clay (as also do the sharper of the outliers on the north- 
 west), but even without these it would be a marked 
 object. 
 
 On the northern side of the London Basin there are 
 also well-marked outliers, though hot within our dis- 
 trict. Those of Wargrave and Lane End can, however, 
 be well seen as distant objects, the former on account 
 of its two masses of London Clay, which form gentle 
 conical hills, covered with woods. 
 
 It is remarkable that both the sharpest slopes of the 
 hills and the flattest tops are found in one division, the 
 Oldhaven Beds, the pebble-beds of which follow the 
 rule of gravel-deposits, and form flat tracts, whilst on 
 the eroded faces their angle of rest is comparatively 
 high. 
 
48 
 
 CHAPTER 4. 
 EOCENE TERTIARY FORMATIONS (continued). 
 
 1. London Clay. 
 
 Structure and Fossils. 
 
 After the deposition of the Oldhaven Beds from 
 shallow water, a gradual depression must have suc- 
 ceeded, and continued for a long time, for the next 
 formation bears evidence of comparatively deep-sea 
 conditions, and of tranquil deposit. It consists almost 
 wholly of stiff clay, but with more or less sandy parts, 
 especially at top and bottom, and it has yielded a great 
 number of fossils, of kinds that must have existed in a 
 fairly deep and warm ocean. At the bottom there is 
 nearly always a bed of loam and pebbles that shows 
 a sort of passage into the beds beneath, both in its 
 structure and, to some extent, in its fossils also ; to this 
 the name of " basement-bed " has been given. 
 
 It is remarkable that the incoming of the various 
 divisions of the Lower Tertiary series of formations is 
 generally marked by certain special appearances : loamy 
 beds, with green grains and with flint-pebbles, or, where 
 the bed lies directly on the Chalk, with green-coated 
 flints ; and the basement-bed of the London Clay follows 
 this rule. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of London the clay that bears 
 its name is 400 or more feet thick (from the bottom of 
 the Bagshot Sand to the top of the Lower London Ter- 
 tiaries), but it is of course only where the Bagshot Sand 
 occurs that the whole thickness is found, the upper 
 parts having been worn off elsewhere. 
 
 Although so many fossils have been found in this clay, 
 yet observers may in many cases search for them in vain 
 in pits, &c. Most fossils have been got from large 
 openings, whether in brickyards or railway-works, where 
 the workmen have saved specimens and taken them to 
 collectors, or which geologists have constantly visited. 
 The shells of the London Clay belong chiefly to the 
 genera Nautilus. Plev/rotoma, Fusus, Voluta, Oassidaria, 
 
LONDON CLAY. 49 
 
 Turritella, Cyprcea, Dentalmm, Murex, Natica, and 
 Pyrula (univalves), and Area, Avicula, GarMmn, Gor- 
 bula, Gyth&rea, Modiola, Nucula, and Pirma (bivalves). 
 Many species of Grustacea and of Echinodermata also 
 occur, as well as Gorals and microscopic Entomostraca 
 and Foraminifera. The most remarkable fossils of the 
 London Clay, however, the Birds, Eeptiles, Fishes, and 
 Plants, are hardly represented in our immediate district, 
 but . occur chiefly to the east, in f^heppey, where on the 
 other hand there are fewer shells, the plant-remains out- 
 numbering all others. The turtles of those long-past 
 days would seem to have avoided the neighbourhood of 
 London, perhaps from an instinctive prophetic vision of 
 the slaughter of their descendants that would take place 
 there in the distant future. 
 
 From the frequency of certain fossils at certain 
 horizons the London Clay has been divided by some 
 observers into zones, but I doubt whether these divisions 
 have more than a local value, in face of the difference 
 in the fossils of Sheppey and Highgate, places which, 
 on stratigraphical grounds, we should infer to be at 
 about the same horizon in the formation, which at both 
 is capped by Bagshot Sand and is at a considerable 
 vertical height above the Lower London Tertiaries. 
 The multitude of seed-vessels and other remains of plants 
 found at Sheppey (generally fossilized in iron-pyrites), 
 of course shows that there land, or a great river, could 
 not have been very far off. 
 
 Many of the London Clay fossils have been found in 
 the septaria (large nodular concretionary masses of 
 clayey limestone, with septa, or divisions, of crystalline 
 carbonate of lime) that so often occur ; indeed, there are 
 cases of certain species that were before rare having 
 been found in thousands in these stones, masses of which 
 are occasionally crowded with one species of shell, for 
 instance Modiola elegans and Gorbula globosa. 
 
 There are two fossils that claim a passing notice here ; 
 the one is a species of Teredina, or ship-worm, a boring 
 shell that has pierced through many of the fragments of 
 wood of the London Clay, just as its living representa- 
 tive riddles the timber of our own day, the destroyer and 
 destroyed having been fossilized together and preserved 
 sometimes in great perfection ; the other is a sort of 
 amber, or fossil gum, known as Highgate Resin, that 
 must have exuded from trees of the time. - - . , -.. 
 
 U 60S] 5. n 
 
50 LONDON CLAY. 
 
 , Crystals of 8elemM (sulpliate of lime) are of common 
 occurrence in this as in Qtlier' clays. They are some- 
 times called by workmen "petrified water," and are 
 remarkable for the extreme thinness of the laminsB into 
 which they may be split in one direction. The crystals 
 are nearly transparent and sometimes of large size. 
 
 B(mge-and Features. 
 
 The London Clay forms a very broad band right 
 through our district from S.^^". to N.E, The southern 
 boundary runs from Epsom, by Croydon and Beckenham 
 to Mottingham ; then westward, by Lewisham to Dul- 
 wich ; then northward, by Oamberwell to the Thames 
 at Bermondsey ; and then eastward, under the alluvium 
 and gravel of the river, until it appears again on the 
 Essex side at Wennington, and continues its course by 
 Ayeley to Orsett. The northern boundary follows that 
 of the Reading Beds from Windsor to , Hedgerley and 
 the Colne, and then along the left bank of the valley of 
 ihat river north-eastward. 
 
 Although over the large area thus included this 
 formation is to a great extent covered , by various 
 members of the Drift Series, and partly by OTitliers of 
 the Bagshot Beds, yet there are large tracts of .unmiti- 
 gated clay, which show the usual features of a thick 
 homogeneous mass of this character. We do not find 
 an absolute flat, as some would perhaps expect, but a 
 series of very gentle xmidulations, with small streams in 
 some of the broad hollows. The chief of these unin- 
 teresting clay-tracts are betvireen Ditton, Epsom, Sutton, 
 and Merton, in Surrey, and in Middlesex, betwe^n„Ux- 
 bridge and Hendon. 
 
 Along the southern boimdary westward of Croydon 
 the escarpment is but a small rise; but;, north ward of 
 that town the hill-forming tendency of the London Clay 
 is well shown by the marked range of Norwood, Syden- 
 ham, and Forest Hills, .which, .rising with a long §lope 
 from the ground on the^ east, form a conspicuous object 
 in the landscape, heightened by the array of houses, with 
 the glittering mass of the Crystal Palace in the midst, 
 along the evenly cut but northerly inclined top. The 
 mass of Shooter's Hill, again, is one of the most promi- 
 nent obiects in the district, rising up on all sides' to a 
 height of 200 feeit and more above the surrounding 
 
LONDON CLAY. 51 
 
 country, sometimes wiih a slope of 10°, and reaching, 
 withits cappingL.of graVel, theheiglit of 420 feet above 
 the sea-level. 
 
 Along the northern boundary the escarpment is again 
 conspicuous for the most part, as on the south of Windsor, 
 and. along the valley of the Cplne, Stanmore Heath, in- 
 deed, with its capping of pebble-gravel, being the highest 
 ground in Middlesex. 
 
 The left side of the valley of the Lea, from Waltham 
 Abbey to Ohingf ord, consists almost wholly of a fine 
 range of clay -hills, along the flanks of which are some- 
 times traces of former landslips. The western edge of 
 Richmond Park is the relic of an old river-cliff of clay 
 (capped by gravel), in sharp contrast with the gravel-flat 
 at its foot. 
 
 Of course the sharper slopes of the London Clay are 
 naturally well- drained, but the lower and flatter tracts 
 are generally damp, and 'except in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of London, population has avoided them, the 
 impermeable nature of the soil and the difl&culty of 
 getting water, except ;by sinking deep wells, making 
 them anything but desirable spots for residence. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 In the following list of some of the sections that can 
 now be seen I have named such as have fallen particu- 
 larly under my notice ; but there are many more, in 
 railway-cuttings and brickyards, though the former are 
 of course to be seen only for a time, and there have been 
 many others that are not now to be seen. Of these some 
 deserve notice here, from having yielded a rich harvest 
 of fossils ; for instance. Chalk Farm, Hampstead and 
 Sydenham Hill railwayTtunnels, Copenhagen Fields (now 
 the Oattle Market), and "Whetstone ; whilst at Hedgerley- 
 (north of Windsor) there was once a good section of the 
 basement-bed, with a layer of highly fossiliferous stone. 
 
 Those sections that show the junction with the beds 
 below have been already noticed in the list& of sections 
 at pp. 41 and 44. For details the reader is referred to 
 The Geology of London, pp. 241-248, 252, 254-259. 
 
 D 2 
 
52. 
 
 LONDON CLAY. 
 
 Plaae of Section of the London Clay. 
 
 Part of the Formation shown. 
 
 Berhshire. 
 
 Windsor. — Brickyark E. of Cavalry Bar- 
 racks. 
 
 Windsor, — Great Park, N.B. of Bishop's 
 Gate. 
 
 . Surrey. 
 
 Egham.— Tile- kiln 
 
 Epsom. — Brickyard at E. of Common 
 
 SuttoiJ. — Brickyards on N. 
 
 Croydon.— Brickyard, \\ miles N.W. of 
 
 church. 
 Kingston. — Norbiton Pottery 
 Forest Hill.— Tile-kiln - 
 
 Kent. 
 
 Penge. — Brickyards on the E. 
 Beckenham Place. — Brickyard - 
 Bromley. — ^Brickyard at ShootingCommon 
 
 Chiselhurst. — Kiln On the N.W. - 
 Plumste.ad Common. — Tile-kiln - 
 
 Hertfordshire. 
 Eadlett. — Brickyard N.N.E. of station - 
 
 Shenley. — Rabley brickyard 
 
 Middlesex. 
 
 Uxbridge. —Kiln on the common 
 Barnet.T— Brickyard N. of railway-station 
 Hanipstead. — Brickyard, Child's Hill 
 Harapstead. — ^Brickyard near Finchley 
 
 Road Station. 
 Hampstead. — ^Brickyard E. of Vale of 
 
 Health. 
 Highgate. — ^Brickyard at Archway, and 
 
 road-cutting. 
 Tottenham. — Brickyards on W. and S.W. 
 
 Essex. . 
 
 Buokhurst Hili.— Kiln - 
 
 Theydon Mount. — Kiln N. of church 
 
 Brentwood. — iBrickyard near railway- 
 station. 
 
 Stifford.— Brickyard a mile E.N.E. of 
 church. 
 
 Upminster. — Pottery about IJ miles N. - 
 
 Warloy.— Brickyiird at Little Bredens - 
 
 Lower part. 
 
 Passage-beds into Bagshot 
 Sand. 
 
 Upper part, fossiliferous. 
 Lower part. 
 
 Top part, fossiliferous. 
 Middle or upper part. 
 
 Lower part. 
 
 Bottom part. 
 
 Bottom part, over Oldhaven 
 
 Beds. 
 Lower part. 
 Bottom part. 
 
 Basement-bed (covered by 
 
 Drift). 
 Basement-bed. 
 
 Lower or middle part. 
 Middle part. 
 Upper part. 
 Middle part. 
 
 Top part. 
 
 „ „ (fossiliferous) and 
 passage into Bagshot Sand. 
 Middle part. 
 
 Upper part. 
 
 Clay, and passage-beds into 
 
 Bagshot Sand. 
 Very sandy passage-beds 
 
 into Bagshot Sand. 
 Basement-bed, fossiliferous. 
 
 Upper part, capped by loam. 
 Top part. 
 
BAGSHOT BEDP. 53 
 
 2. Bagshot Beds. 
 
 Structure and Range. 
 
 Towards tte close of tte London Clay period it would 
 seem as if the sea in which that deposit was formed 
 had grown shallower, whether by continual silting up, 
 which was not compensated by gradual sinking as before, 
 or by actual rise of the land ; for the top part of the 
 formation is more sandy, the amount of sand increasing, 
 moreover, in successive beds, until from stiff London 
 Clay there is a passage through sandy clay, loam, and 
 clayey sand to Bagshot Sand. It follows, therefore, that 
 between the two formations there is, as a rule, no strongly- 
 marked hard and fast line, and that it is sometimes 
 doubtful with which to group certain of the sandy or 
 clayey beds at the horizon of passage: one observer 
 would carry the boundary of the Bagshot Beds down to 
 the lowest layer of sand, when another would rather 
 class with the London Clay everything from the highest 
 layer of clay downward. The safer rule perhaps is to 
 take the higher boundary, unless, as a compromise, the 
 passage-beds were separately mapped as such ; but 
 actually it is a matter of no great moment, and the 
 junction is generally shown with some clearness by the 
 frequent springs, thrown out from the sandy permeable 
 beds above by the clayey impermeable beds below. 
 
 The Bagshot Beds as a whole consist of sand, with 
 occasional layers of clay and loam, and with iine clayey 
 partings : here and there too we find pebble-beds of the 
 same character as those of Blackheath. They are for 
 the most part unfossiliferous in the London Basin, 
 though casts of marine shells occur plentifully here and 
 there in the Middle and Upper divisions; but in the 
 Hampshire Basin, the middle part, there well developed, 
 has yielded many fossils. The series is made up of 
 three divisions. Upper, Middle, and Lower, the last two 
 of which are in their turn susceptible of subdivision. 
 
 The main mass takes up the south-western corner of 
 our district, from the southern part of Windsor Park, 
 by Ohertsey and "Wey bridge to Bsher, along which 
 course, however, the boundary-line- is much hidden by 
 the gravel of the Thames. Far off, on some of the 
 higher grounds of Middlesex and Essex, there are out- 
 liers (of the Lower division only), silent witnesses of the 
 
54 BAQSHOT BEDS. 
 
 former extension of the beds and of the great erosion 
 that they must have been subjected to in the course of 
 ages ; the fragments that remain in our district being 
 but small in comparison with the vast amount of material 
 that has been worn away. 
 
 Lowm Sand, and Pebble Bed. 
 
 It is this lower division that alone takes up any con- 
 siderable area in our district, where it consists chiefly 
 of fine light'ooloured sand, sometimes iron-shot, and 
 sometimes with masses of iron-sandstqne : thpre are 
 also very thin layers of pipe-clay ;, but we do not find 
 in the London Basin any of tliose, thick masses of 
 valuable pipe-clay that occur in the Lower Bagshot 
 Beds of Dorsetshire. 
 
 Soiith of !^gham and west of Chertsey a; pebble-bed, 
 some feet ttick, pccurs in places, apparently near the 
 bottom of the sand, and it is composed of perfectly rolled 
 pieces ■ of chalk- flints in a sandy matrix, just as the 
 analogous pebble-bed of Blackheath, &c. (in the Lower 
 London Tertiaries) : it follows, therefore, that this 
 Bagshot pebble-bed must either have been made up 
 from an older Tertiary pebble-bed, or from flints derived 
 directly from the Chalk, or , partly from both, sources ; 
 in all cases pointing to an overlap of the Bagshot Beds 
 over the London Clay to the beds below. Now we know 
 that the London Cla^ thins gradually westward, and that 
 in the far west of the London Basin, near Marlborough, 
 it seems to have thinned out altogether, so that the 
 Bagshot Sand is there but little above the Chalk; and 
 we might conclude; therefore that these pebbles may 
 have come from the west. It is, however, quite possible 
 that a like thinning may have occurred northward* 
 though from the demjding: ^way, of the beds no evidence 
 of it lias been left,; and also southward, over the Wealden 
 area. 
 
 In the Essex outliers there is sometimes a bed of 
 brickearth over the sand, and at top of all is a pebble- 
 bed, like that above noticed, but of muph more frequent 
 occurrence (so that it has been mapped by the Greolo- 
 gical Survey), and reachii^ga tMckueas of 15 feet. 
 
BAGSHOT BEDS. 55 
 
 BracJclesJiam Beds. 
 
 Of this middle division we have only a spur of the 
 main mass, N, and N.B. of Chobham, and a few outliers. 
 It is of a more clayey and fertile character than the 
 sandy beds below, consisting of loam, clayey greensand, 
 and brown clay, which last is generally found at the 
 bottom. In the small outlier at St. Ann's Hill, Ohert- 
 sey, there are also pebble-beds of some thickness, so that 
 it is possible that the Essex pebble-bed may belong to 
 this division. 
 
 TI;pper8and. 
 
 In the London Basin the Barton Clay, which in 
 Hampshire-forms th« higher part of th« middle-division, 
 is absent, and the upper sand rests on the Bracklesham 
 Beds. Of this we have in our district but three wee 
 outliers, on the high ground north of Chobham. 
 
 It has been suggested, however, that this sand is not 
 the same as the Upper Bagshot of the Hampshire Basin ; 
 but should ratherbB classed as Middle Bagshot. I am 
 inclined to think that a more simple classification than 
 now holds wiir be adopted, and that we' shall speak of 
 Barton Beds, of Bracklesham Beds, and of Bagshot 
 Beds, the first not occurring in the London Basin, and 
 the last being the Lower Bagshot of the present arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Features. 
 
 The Bagshot Beds as a whole form a more or less 
 barren sanidy tract of irregular rising ground/ in part 
 open, but sometimes thickly covered with fir and larch, 
 which flourish well on a sandy soil. St. George's Hill, 
 Oobham, is a fair example of a sand hill. 
 
 The outliers of Harrow, of Hampstead, and of High- 
 gate, are perhaps the inost prominent objects in Middle^ 
 sex; but it should be remembered that in these the 
 sand forms merely the highest part of the hills, the 
 longer slopes of which are of London Clay. This is also 
 the case to a great extent in the Essex outliers, but here 
 the larger masses of the pebble- bed on -the hill-tops also 
 show the flat-forming feature of gravels. 
 
56 
 
 BAGSHOT BEDS. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 All the sections in the following list are in the Lower 
 Division only, except the two near Chertsey and Wey- 
 bridge, which show the junction of the Middle and Lower 
 Divisions, and the former perhaps a fault with a northern 
 downthrow of many feet. Later observers, however, 
 question the fault, regarding the phenomena as resulting 
 only from landslips. 
 
 Besides the pits named there are road-cuttings down 
 the sandy slopes, and other small exposures. 
 
 Some sections of the passage-beds between the Bag- 
 shot Sand and the London Clay are named in the list at 
 p. 52. 
 
 Place of Section of the Bagshot Beds. 
 
 Nature of the Beds. 
 
 Surrey, 
 
 Virginia Water Station. — Pit 
 Virginia Water Station. — Pit, 
 - f mile N. 
 Egham Hill. — Large old pit 
 
 Chertsey.— St. Ann's Hill 
 
 Weybridge. — St. George's Hill 
 Brickfield. 
 
 Middlesex. 
 Hampstead Heath. — Pits - 
 Highgate Archway 
 
 Essex^ 
 
 High Beech. — Small pits - , 
 Havering.— Pita and brickyard 
 Southweald Park, Langtons 
 Brentwood and Warley. — Pits 
 Blackmore — Brickyard a mile S.E. 
 
 Sand with a layer of pebbles. 
 Sandy pebble-bed. 
 
 Sand, with thin clay-layers and a 
 layer of pebbles. 
 
 Sandy pebble-bed, clayey green- 
 sand with pebbles, brown clay, 
 and sandi 
 
 Clayey greensand over sand. 
 
 Sand, with thin layers of clay here 
 
 and there. 
 Passage into London Clay. 
 
 Sand with thin layers of clay. 
 
 Pebble-bed and sand. 
 
 Sand, pebble-bed, and loam. ' 
 
 Pebble-bed and sand. 
 
 Loam and sand . Pebbles higher up. 
 
 For a full, account see Vol. IV. of the Geoloyical Survey Memoirs, 
 pp. 315-317, 332, 333, for the Surrey sections above noted: and for 
 the rest The Geology cf London, pp. 266-276. 
 
^7 
 
 CHAPTER 5. 
 DRIFT SERIES. GLACIAL AND DOUBTFUL. 
 
 1. General Remarks. 
 
 In tte London Basin, after the Bagshot Beds, we come 
 to a great gap in the series of geological formations, 
 the thick mass of the Fluvio-marine Beds of the Hamp- 
 shire Basin being altogether unrepresented, and the next 
 deposits being the Crag beds of the Eastern Counties, 
 which last, moreover, are wanting in our special district, 
 where we pass from the older Tertiaries to the far newer 
 set of deposits now usually massed under the term 
 Drift. 
 
 Although, however, the vast time between the end of 
 the Bagshot period and the begining of the Drift is 
 wholly wrvrepresented by deposit, yet it is to a certain 
 extent represented by demickdion; for, from the way in 
 which the Drift beds lie on the various older formations, 
 not succeeding in regular order, but sometimes resting 
 on one and sometimes on another of them, it is clear 
 that these latter must have suffered great waste before 
 the former were deposited on their eroded surfaces. 
 
 Comparatively thin though they may be as a rule, 
 nevertheless, froni their wide spread and the great effect 
 they have on the nature of the surface, the members of 
 the Drift are of great importance practically ; whilst 
 from the peculiar conditions they point to, and their 
 varying composition, many of them are also of great 
 interest, and the more so as they are the introduction to 
 the present era of the world's history, part of them (in 
 our district the newer part) being the first beds that 
 give evidence of the existence of man. 
 
 In classifying the various Drifts we have not the un^ 
 deniable evidence of superposition (in our own district) 
 to depend on, as with the beds already described, the 
 succession and relative position of which are absolutely 
 certain; nor do we get much aid from the contained 
 fossils, for with the exception of those derived from 
 other formations, and which, of course, are useless for 
 determining age, these occur here only in one set of 
 
58 
 
 DRIFT. 
 
 Drift beds, those that we infer to be the newest, and 
 connected with the present river-system. Although, 
 however, the task of arranging these beds of gravel, sand, 
 loam, and clay in their chronological order might well 
 seem a rather hopeless one, and indeed was thought to 
 be so in the earlier days of the still new science jof geology, 
 yet, from the careful study that they have had of late 
 years, the chief points in their stratigraphical relations 
 have been made out, and from their relative positions 
 and mode of occurrence we can generally j;ell their 
 relative ages. ' 
 
 There are two great groups of these beds, respectively 
 known as Glacial Drift, ' deposited at a time when 
 glacial or icy conditions prevailed, and Post-Glacial 
 Drift, deposited at a later period, when the glacial con- 
 ditions had either . passed away (locally at least), or 
 become much modified. It is hardly possible, however, 
 in the present state of our knowledge, to range all the 
 superficial deposits of our district under these two heads, 
 there being a goodly show of beds that refuse to give a 
 clue to their highly problematical age. The uncertain- 
 ties in the geological sequence are from, three quarters: 
 from a pebble- gravel that may be of Glacial 'age, but is 
 as likely to be Pre-Glacial, and therefore the most aged 
 of its family ; from' another gravel (plateau-gravel) that 
 may be Glacial, but is more likely to be early Post- 
 Glacial ; and from a sheet of clay and loam (on the 
 Chalk) the formation of which may have taken jplace 
 during a long period, down indeed to a very late one, if 
 not actually going on now to a slight extent, in the case 
 of the clay. 
 
 In the following pages the various divisions will be 
 described in what seems most likely to be their natural 
 order, beginning with the oldest, but leaving the doubt- 
 ful beds to the end of the chapter. It must be under- 
 stood, however, that it is very difficult to classify some 
 tracts of gravel, &c., and that the colour, given to them 
 on the map does not always imply that a definite opinion 
 has been come to, but only that the balance of proba- 
 bilities pointed in th'e direction indicated, at the time 
 when the map was made. 
 
 2. Pee-Glacial (?) Pebbie-Gravel. 
 
 On the tops of the London Clay Jiills there is often a 
 mass of sandy gravel of an exceptional sort, that is ^o 
 
DRIFT. 59 
 
 say, it is almost wholly wanting in the more or less 
 angular piedes of flint that form the greater part of the 
 other gravels to be described, and, like the far older 
 gravel-beds of the Blaokheath and Bagshot Series (pp. 42, 
 54), its component stones have been rounded into the 
 form of pebbles. Showing at first sight a very great 
 likeness to the old Tertiary pebble-beds, after a more 
 careful examination this gravel is seen to be easily distin- 
 guished from them ; for whilst the pebbles of the former 
 are Of flint only that is not the case with the latter, which 
 contains also a large proportion of pebbles of quartz and 
 of quartzite, and here and there a sub-angular flint. 
 "Were this gravel roughly sorted, it would mostly be 
 found that amongst the larger pebbles those of flint were 
 in excess, whilst amongst the smaller those of quairtz 
 were most common ; sometimes, indeed, the abundance of 
 small rounded pieces of white quarts gives the gravel a 
 very distinctive appearance. 
 
 The flint-pebbles have probably been derived from the 
 destruction of the old Tertiary pebble-beds; but the 
 pebbles of quartz, of quartzite, and of other older rocks 
 that occaSibnally occur must have been derived from beds 
 that are not found anywhere in our district. 
 
 Of the age of this gravel we cannot yet speak with 
 certainty. It is newer than the Lower Bagshot Beds, 
 for it is known to overlie them ; and it is older than the 
 Boulder Clay, which is found above it, but between 
 these extremes we are left to reason by analogy and by 
 the evidence given by the manner of its occurrence. 
 
 In the first place it is not likely to belong to any part 
 of the Bagshot Beds, as it is unlike any part of them, 
 and as it rests both On their lower member and also on 
 London Clay. Secondly, it is unlike the Crag beds of 
 Suffolk, which, moreover, are not known to occur any- 
 where near our district. It would seem, therefore, to 
 belong to the Drift, and the question is practically- 
 limited to the relation of this gravel to the other Drift 
 bfeds. 
 
 Nowhere do we see its relation to the sands, gravels, 
 &c., which so commonly occur beneath the Boulder 
 Clay, and which have been named Middle Grlacial 
 by Mr. S. Y. Wood, and consequently it is open to 
 olaes^ it with those beds, as that observer did, and 
 the opinion of no one is of greater weight on ^ such a 
 subject. 
 
60 
 
 DRIFT. 
 
 On the other hand, it may be urged that this gravel 
 is distinct from that of the Middle Glacial Drift, and 
 to my mind the balance of evidence is in favour of this 
 conclusion, for the pebblergravel is very dijfferent in 
 composition from the otherj and it has never been found 
 to contain the layer of boulder-clay that is so often 
 found in the midst of the Middle Griacial gravel. 
 
 From its occurrence on the tops of the hills, whilst 
 the Middle Glacial gravel often lies at their bases, or on 
 their flanks, it would seem that the pebble-gravel is the 
 older of the two and that it was deposited before those 
 hills were cut into their present form, a process which must 
 have been somewhat advanced before the other gravel 
 was laid down. It is possible, therefore, that the pebble- 
 gravel may represent some part of the Lower Glacial 
 (of Mr. Wood), any known occurrence of , which is, 
 however, as far distant as Crag. 
 
 It occurred to me, whilst carrying on the Geological 
 Survey in parts of SuflFolk, that this pebble-gravel might 
 represent a very similar bed which is there found in 
 considerable thickness over certain tracts, as near South- 
 wold and Halesworth, where it underlies the Glacial 
 Drift and overlies the Chillesford Clay (of the Crag 
 period). This gravel (belonging to the Bure Valley Beds 
 of Wood, or the Westleton Beds of Prestwich) has been 
 classed as the base of the Lower Glacial,but my colleague 
 Mr. H. B. "Woodward has taken its continuation north- 
 ward, in Norfolk, to belong to the Crag. 
 
 On the whole, it seems safer for the present to regard 
 the pebble-gravel as the oldest Drift of our district, and 
 as a bed of somewhat local occurrence. 
 
 The chief localities are Stanmore Heath, from Shenley 
 south-eastward, west and north of Barnet, and at Tot- 
 teridge, in Middlesex ; at High Beech, Jacks Hill, and 
 Gayne's Park, east of Bpping, in Essex ; and at Shooter's 
 Hill, in Kent. 
 
 Some patches of pebble-gravel that may not really be 
 of the same age have been coloured with this on the 
 map, as a matter of convenience, it being almost im- 
 possible to give a separate colour to every different in- 
 determinable bed. 
 
 3. Glacial Drift. 
 
 The deposits we have now to consider gave unmistake- 
 able evidence of conditions different from those with 
 
GLACIAL DRIFT. 61 
 
 which we have yet had to deal, and they belong to what 
 has been well called ' the Great Ice Age,' an age when 
 the northern, and other mountainous parts of our island 
 had their valleys filled with glaciers, rivers of ice flowing 
 from snow-capped mountains, and at one time would 
 seem even to have been covered by a great ice-mantle, 
 such as that now found in Greenland, a vast sheet of 
 ice and snow hiding both hill and dale beneath its ample 
 folds. Whilst this state of things occurred in the north 
 our southern lowlands would seem for the most part to 
 have been no better off, but were subjected to strong 
 ice-action also, though in what form is a matter in 
 dispute (see p. 63). 
 
 The beds classed as the lowest of these Glacial Drifts, 
 which are well developed in Norfolk, and may be well 
 seen in the coast-sections of that county, do not occur 
 so far west as our area, where we have to deal only with 
 beds that have been classed with the middle and upper 
 divisions of the series, unless the pebble-gravel just 
 noticed should turn out to belong to the lower division. 
 
 It is remarkable that no Glacial Drift has been found 
 south of the Thames (unless some of the high patches 
 of gravel should turn out to be of that age), whether 
 from having never been deposited over that tract, or 
 from having been since denuded away, both views being 
 held by geologists. I have, however, seen rounded 
 lumps of hard chalk, very suggestive of those found in 
 the Boulder Clay, in Kent, at a high level on Lower 
 Tertiary beds, at Crocken Hill, eastward of St. Mary's 
 Cray ; but from the want of any kind of section it was 
 impossible to make out the origin of the clayey soil at 
 the spot. 
 
 Gravel, Sand and Clay {Middle Glacial of Wood). 
 
 The gravel we have now to describe is made up of a 
 great variety of materials, and these varying in different 
 places. The flints of the Chalk, one of the most in- 
 destructible stones, form the chief constituent, whether 
 as partly worn sub-angular fragments that have been 
 derived directly from the parent rock, or as rolled pebbles 
 that once formed part of some old Tertiary formation ; 
 pebbles of quartz and quartzite are next in number ; but 
 there are also the relics of other rocks, and in places 
 many of their less destructible fossils, notably specimens 
 
62 GLACIAL DRIFT. 
 
 of Gryphea and of Belemniies of various divisions oithe 
 great Jurassic' (or Oolitic) Series. 
 
 ■ Interhedded witli the gravel are sometiines masses of 
 sand and sometimes of loam, or clay, the latter of which 
 must have been deposited in tolerably sheltered places. 
 Besides these, however, thef e is sometimes a layer of true 
 Boulder Olay in the gravel, that is, a clay that contains 
 irregularly rounded fragments oi* boulders of •Various 
 rocks, the surfaces of which are furrowed and sbratched 
 in the way peculiar to stones that have been dragged 
 along by masses of ice and subjected thereby to grinding 
 action. This clay bein^ like that which occurs in force 
 above the gravel, serves to link the two 'deposits together, 
 and to show that the glaiial conditions which seem to 
 have reigned supreme du¥ing the formation of the great 
 mass of Boulder Olay existed also- during the deposition 
 of the lower bed, though to a less extent. 
 ' It is only far to the east that shells (belonging to the 
 deposit)' have been founds in this set of beds, and these 
 are marine. We maiy coiiclude therefore that these 
 Grlacial gravels, &c., were deposited in a sea of no very 
 great depth, in which occasional icebergs, dropped their 
 freight of clay and stones. • 
 
 It is not certain that all the gravel- coloured with this 
 OU' the ifflap should be classed with it ; thus, that which 
 occurs on the Buckinghamshire- hills may turn, out to 
 belong to the " plateau-gravel " (of ■ doubtful sf|^e) that 
 win be noticed presently i In the absence of Boulder 
 Olay it is often difficult to classify these hilPgravels,^and 
 in this particular case it tvas merely ' thought aafer to 
 colour the gravel as^ Olacial than to make a, division 
 where no good ground for it existed, there beings abun- 
 dance of good Glacial gravel not many miles oflF. 
 
 It 'should be menti(5tifed\ that, this division is i^ten 
 absent, and that the Bowlder Olay therefore, often rests 
 at once on the older Tertiary beds. ' " ' '■ ' 
 
 .. Boulder Clay {Upper, Glacial, oi Wood). 
 
 The Oreat Ohalky "Boulder Olay, as it has "been 
 called (though other Boulder Olays are equally chalky) 
 is a bluish-grey clay, mostly of a dark shade, crowded 
 with boulders or transported fragments oi many rocks 
 tha/t vary in size from mere pebbles to large blocks. 
 
GLACIAL DRIFT. 63 
 
 Chalk is the chief material of these boulders, and it is 
 nearly always hard, so as to have preserved the glacial 
 scratches ; the flints of that formation also occur in 
 great numbers. Next to this, the limestone of the Lias 
 is often common, besides remains of other Jurassic rocks. 
 But older beds are represented, pebbles and masses of 
 quartz and of quartz-rock being of common occurrence, 
 and boulders of hard Carboniferous Limestone with 
 well-preserved scratched surfaces are found, besides 
 sandstones, and granites, greenstones, &c., generally 
 more or less decomppsed. The most plentiful derived 
 fossils are those of the Lias and Oxford Clay, of which, 
 indeed, a very respectable collection might be made in 
 our district, far from those formations. 
 
 We see, therefore, that the mass of contafaied stones, 
 &c., are such as would be derived from tnacts to the 
 north and not from the south. 
 
 Whilst geologists agree that the Boulder Clay has been 
 formed by ice-action they are far from agreeing as to 
 the form of ice that has done the work, and three theories 
 have been advanced, with much controversy. According 
 to the first it is held that this wide- spread deposit, only 
 the southern edge of which enters the tract just north 
 and north-east of London, has been dropped from the 
 melting icebergs that have floated southward from the 
 ice-capped northern country, bergs that have been heavily 
 laden with the scratched stones and the glacier-mud from 
 that region. 
 
 Of late years many geologists have strongly advocated 
 the theory that Boulder Clay has been formed by land- 
 ice ; not by mere glaciers, but by vast ice-sheets under- 
 neath which a bottom-moraine has resulted from the 
 constant grinding action of the thick moving mass. 
 Others again hold that the agent employed was coast- 
 ice, acting on a slowly sinking area. 
 
 No fossils, except the multitude derived from the 
 various formations over which the ice passed, have been 
 found in our Boulder Clay, 
 
 The chief tracts of Boulder Clay in our area are on 
 the north-east of Watford, the most westerly patch ; at 
 Finchley, its most southerly point, where it ends off at 
 the northern slope of the ridge that bounds the valley of 
 the Thames ; and in Essex on the north and north-west 
 of Brentwood, whence it spreads over a very large district, 
 beyond our bounds. 
 
64 
 
 GLACIAL DRIFT. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 Good sections of the Boulder Clay are rare, but it can 
 often be seen in temporary openings and in road-side 
 sections and ponds. The gravel below is naturally more 
 worked for road-material. 
 
 Very good sections of both divisions of the Grlacial 
 Drift were shown by the cuttings on the railway at 
 Pinchley, of which I took notes in the years 1864, 1865, 
 but little is now to be seen of any. 
 
 In the list of sections those only are named which, as 
 far as I know, can still be seen. Details will be found 
 in The Geology of London, pp. 302-315, 323-325. 
 
GLACIAL DRIFT. 
 
 65 
 
 Place of Section of Glacial Drift. 
 
 Beds found. 
 
 Buckinghamshire. 
 
 
 Stoke Common (N. of Slough). — Pit at 
 
 Gravel - 
 
 coloured 
 
 southern end. 
 
 
 nsGlacial, 
 
 Stoke Common. — Pits N. of - 
 
 Gravel and sand 
 
 > but not 
 
 Hedgerley. — Pits on hills to N. - 
 
 Gravel and sand 
 
 with cer- 
 
 Chalfont St. Peter— Pit on hiU to W. - 
 
 Gravel - 
 
 tainty. 
 
 Hertfordshire. 
 
 
 Charley Wood Common, N.W. of Rick- 
 
 Gravel and sand. 
 
 mansworth. 
 
 
 Watford.— Pits W. of town. 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Watford. — Railway-cutting northward of 
 
 Gravel, lying irregularly on 
 
 town, 
 
 Chalk. 
 
 Watford. — Chalk-pit close to Bushey Rail- 
 
 Gravel over brickearth. 
 
 way Station. 
 
 
 Bricket Wood (at edge of map, NN.E. of 
 
 Boulder Clay, below which 
 
 Watford). — Brickyard. 
 
 gravel and sand have 
 
 
 been found. 
 
 Radlett (N.E. of Watford).— Pit on hill 
 
 Gravel and sand. 
 
 E. of railway. 
 
 
 Middlesex. 
 
 
 Harefield, Large Chalk pit N. of - 
 
 Gravel, loam, and sand.lying 
 
 
 very irregularly on Chalk. 
 
 Finchley. — Brickyard southward of church 
 
 Clay and gravel. 
 
 Finchley, Summer's Lane. — Brickyard - 
 
 Boulder Clay, with inter- 
 
 
 beJded loam and sand. 
 
 Whetstone. — Gravel-pit \ mile S. of 
 
 Boulder Clay and gravel. 
 
 Southgate.— Pit N. of (White's Barn) - 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Essex. 
 
 
 Buckhurst Hill. — Gravel-pits 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Theydon Mount. —Pit S.S.E. of church - 
 
 Boulder Xllay over pebbly 
 
 
 gravel. 
 
 Epping. — Brickyard on N. 
 
 Boulder Clay. 
 
 Stondon Massey.— Pits, close to the church 
 
 Gravel and sand. 
 
 Stondon Massey. — Pit N. of Halsford 
 
 Sand (doubtfully classed as 
 
 Bridge. 
 
 Glacial), with a little 
 
 
 Boulder Clay above. 
 
 Kelvedon Common. — Pit 
 
 Pebbles running irregularly 
 
 
 into dark yellow sand 
 
 
 (?Drift and Bagshot). 
 
 Hutton (E. of Brentwood).— Pit on S. - 
 
 Pebbly gravel. 
 
 Mouiitnessing Street. — Pits, on W. 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 U 60515. 
 
66 DRIFT. 
 
 4. Beds of Doubtful Age. 
 
 Plateau (or SUl)' Gravel. 
 Under this name it is convenient to class certain 
 gravel-patclies that occur at a comparatively high level, 
 capping some of our London Clay and Bagshot hills. 
 Possibly some of this may turn out to be of the same 
 age as the Grlacial gravels ; but from the occurrence here 
 and there of pieces o^ chert, like that found in the Lower 
 Greensand of Surrey, &c., we are led to infer that the 
 transport of material from the north did not hold at the 
 time of the formation of this gravel, or at least to 
 nothing like the extent that was the case during Grlacial 
 times, for these fragments of chert must have come from 
 the south. 
 
 This gravel is mainly formed of sub-angular flints and 
 flint-pebbles, with the occasional pieces of chert above 
 mentioned, and some quartz-pebbles : in fact, it is not 
 unlike much of our later gravel, which is connected, 
 more or less, with the present valley- system, and it is 
 indeed sometimes hard to distinguish the two. 
 
 Whilst, therefore, on the one hand, some of the highest 
 masses that have been classed with the Valley Gravel 
 (although they form the tops of existing hills, as at 
 Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common) may, per- 
 haps, really belong to this somewhat older series ; on the 
 other hand, so also may some of the higher gravels that 
 have been classed with the Glacial Drift, as in Bucking- 
 hamshire, northward of Windsor. 
 
 The plateau-gravel does not occur in our district 
 in broad tracts, like those that are found over the high 
 ground of the Bagshot Beds on the south-west, but in 
 more isolated patches, that have been separated by 
 erosion. From the very wide spread that these hill- 
 gravels have in some parts one would be led to think 
 that they are most likely of marine origin, and it has 
 been inferred that they were deposited during emergence 
 of the land at the close of the Glacial period, like certain 
 gravels that occur locally on the Boulder Clay plateau 
 of the Eastern Counties. 
 
 Patches of gravel occur far out in the Chalk tract, as 
 on the top of the high Tertiary outlier at Well Hill, in 
 Kent, where they have no relation to any existing valley, 
 but are probably remnants of a former flheet, now almost 
 destroyed by erosion. ' 
 
DRIFT. 67 
 
 Glay-wUh-fiints. 
 
 The greater part of the higher ground of the Chalk- 
 tracts, both on the north-west and south-east, has a 
 covering of a more or less clayey nature; the upper 
 part of this is often worked for bricks, but the lower is 
 a stiff brown clay, with unworn flints and sometimes 
 pebbles. This lies very irregularly on the Chalk, nearly 
 everywhere, indeed, in pipes dissolved out in that 
 rock by carbonated water flowing through it ; and from 
 the unworn character of the contained flints, the surfaces 
 of some of which are as fresh as if they had come direct 
 from the Chalk (save for their dark staining)^ we may 
 infer that the deposit has been formed on the spot 
 where it is now found, not from material transported 
 from a distance, but through that dissolving away of the 
 Chalk of which the pipes give evidence. By this process 
 the carbonate of lime of the Chalk would be dissolved 
 away, and the insoluble flints and earthy matters left 
 behind, the last receiving, perhaps, an addition from any 
 pre-existing clayey deposit that might occur over the 
 Chalk. 
 
 Such an operation, of course, must have involved a 
 large amount of time, and may have gone on at some 
 depth from the surface, where water could get access to 
 the ^halk ; indeed, it may still be going on, so that a 
 lower bed may actually be formed underneath a higher 
 one. We may conclude, therefore, that the Clay-with- 
 flints is not of a definite age, but may have been forming 
 at any time since the last emergence of the country from 
 the sea (and its subsequent subjection to atmospheric 
 actions) to the present time. The corresponding " argile 
 k silex ' of France is classed by many French geologists 
 as Miocene, or as Eocene, on the ground, that where 
 present it is always next above the Chalk, never occur- 
 ring on even the oldest Eocene beds ; but if it is chiefly 
 the result of the decomposition of Chalk in place, clearly 
 it must always rest on that formation, whatever be its 
 age. 
 
 Various theories of the formation of Clay-with-flints 
 have been brought forward by French geologists, 
 especially of late years, and they have invoked diluvial 
 action, thermal waters rising up from beneath, and also 
 glacial action, to account for deposits of this character ; 
 
 E 2 
 
68 DEIFT. 
 
 but they seem for the most part not to be awaTe of the 
 above theory, which was published in 1864 (see Geological 
 Survey Memoir on Sheet 7), although some of them have 
 now come to much the same conclusion. 
 
 It is pleas mg to find that, in his last work, _" The 
 Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of 
 Worms," Darwin has adopted, or rather independently 
 arrived at, the theory of the Olay-with-flints being the 
 undissolved residue of the Chalk (pp. 137-139 of Ed. 1 , 
 1881). 
 
 From the irregularity of the surface of the Chalk 
 beneath it, the thickness of the Olay-with-flints is, of 
 course, irregular, but it is rarely more than a few feet. 
 The part next the Chalk is usually black, and its flints 
 black-coated. 
 
 Brickearth {of the Ghalk-traot). 
 
 The Clay-with-flints is in great part covered by a 
 more important bed, of a loamy nature, which, where in 
 sufficient thickness, is worked for brick-making. The 
 origin of this brickearth is rather doubtful ; in some places 
 it seems to be little else than a mixture of re-arranged 
 Lower Tertiary beds, with barely a trace of bedding ; 
 whilst in others it is a more or less finely-bedded sandy 
 clay, or clayey sand ; on the north it is possible that it 
 may be allied to the deposits next underlying the 
 Boulder Clay, the Middle Glacial of Mr. S. V. 
 Wood. It occurs chiefly in large hollows or pipes 
 let into the Chalk, and is often so full of flints and 
 pebbles as to be unworkable. In colour it varies from 
 light-brown to grey and red-mottled, so that it might 
 sometimes be taken, at first sight, for the mottled clay 
 of the Eeading Beds, from which, however, it is easily 
 distinguished by,r careful examination, both the colour 
 and the material being less pure than with the richly 
 tinted mottled clays. 
 
 A fuller account of the Clay-with-flints, and of the 
 accompanying Brickearth, is given in The Geology of 
 London,, pp. 281-285, 287, 288. 
 
69 
 
 CHAPTBE 6. 
 POST-GLACIAL BEDS. 
 
 1. River Drifts. 
 
 It should be understood tliat the term Post-G-lacial 
 is here used in what may be called a local sense. For, 
 whilst there can hardly be a doubt that the gravels and 
 brickearths of the Thames Valley were deposited after 
 the neighbouring Boulder Clay (here the newest member 
 of the Glacial Drift), yet we naturally infer that further 
 northward glacial conditions lasted longer ; and indeed 
 we have evidence of the existence of later deposits north- 
 ward that as truly belong to the Glacial Drift as our 
 southern Boulder Clay does. It follows therefore that 
 our River Drifts may have been formed, in these southern 
 parts, at the same time as some of the ice-formed beds in 
 the colder tracts to the north, where moreover there is 
 no such extent of Post-Glacial gravel. 
 
 GondiMons vmder which they were formed. 
 
 The River Drifts, to the consideration of which we 
 have now come, are amongst the most interesting beds 
 of the district ; not only as occurring over large tracts 
 and materially affecting the character of the surface 
 (although generally of slight thickness), but also from 
 their containing the bones of animals for the most part 
 now extinct in our island, but associated with a moUuscan 
 fauna of recent type and with the earliest remains of 
 human art, the now well-known flint-implements, the 
 first traces of man yet found. 
 
 These beds of gravel, sand, and loam, formed after the 
 great Ice Age, with its deposits of Boulder Clay, had 
 (locally at least) passed away, and when the climate, 
 though not so mild as now, had sensibly changed for the 
 better, may be looked upon as the forerunner of present 
 
70 RIVER DRIFT. 
 
 conditions, the sign of the ' better times that were to 
 succeed. 
 
 From their position at various levels along the valleys 
 in which our streams run, from their character and 
 composition, and from their fossil cSntents, which are 
 of land and freshwater species, there can be no doubt 
 that they were deposited by rivers, and by rivers, 
 following the present lines of drainage. These rivers, 
 however, from the coarseness of the material deposited, 
 must have had greater power than their modern repre- 
 sentatives, power that must have been gained by greater 
 rainfall, and by greater liability to floods, both resulting 
 from a greater elevation of the land and a colder, or 
 more continental, climate than now holds. 
 
 At the time when the old Thames deposited the gravels 
 that now occur along the flanks of its valley England 
 was part of the European continent, and the Thames 
 perhaps a tributary of the Rhine; but, rising from 
 higher ground than now, receiving a greater quantity 
 of water, and probably having a greater slope, it had a 
 more torrential character than the present quiet stream, 
 and therefore was endowed with greater erosive and 
 carrying power. Across the land since worn away 
 and now occupied by the narrow seas of the Straits 
 of Dover, &c., must have come the animals that took 
 possession of the country, and of whose existence at this 
 period we have evidence in the bones and teeth that are 
 found in the gravel and brickearth. 
 
 From the occurrence of these River Drifts at successive 
 stages or terraces on the sides of the valley, we are led to 
 infer that after the deposit of the first or highest gravel 
 the river deepened its bed, cutting through that gravel, 
 and depositing another mass at a lower level, in its turn 
 to be cut through as the channel was further deepened. 
 Naturally, the highest of these terraces, of which there 
 are often three in the valley of the Thames, has suffered 
 more from denudation than the others; sometimes, 
 indeed, it occurs only in the form of outliers, completely 
 cut oflF from the neighbouring masses, the underlying bed 
 having been laid bare all round ; and very generally it 
 is separated from the terrace below by a narrow outcrop 
 of London Clay, or of some older formation. 
 
RIVER DRIFT. 71 
 
 Gravel and Scmd. 
 
 By far the larger area of the Drift of the Thames 
 Valley consists of the ■well-known gravel on which so 
 great a part of London is built. The chief constituent 
 of this is, as might be expected, the most indestructible 
 material that occurs along the course of the river, and 
 which indeed is perhaps the most enduring (whether 
 against chemical or mechanical actions) that we possess, 
 the flints of the Chalk. These, having been left behind 
 during the denudation of their destructible containing- 
 rock, have been more or less broken, and the fragments 
 have been rolled about by transport in water until they 
 have been reduced to the state known as sub-angular, 
 that is one in which, whilst preserving the general irre- 
 gularly angular shape, all the more prominent edges 
 and points have been rounded off. 
 
 Together with these sub-angular flints there are also 
 many fragments of the same material in a very different 
 state, perfectly waterworn and rounded, or, in other 
 words, reduced to the form of pebbles. Now it is clear 
 that these finished specimens of the result of long-con- 
 tinued attrition on pieces of flint could hardly have been 
 formed by the same action that only succeeded in round- 
 ing off sharp edges, especially as we do not find the 
 intermediate shapes that would occur were the difference 
 merely one resulting from the difference of time during 
 which the stones had been subjected to the wearing 
 action of the river. On referring, however, to the 
 accounts of the old Tertiary formations, it will be seen 
 that those beds have already provided a stock of flint- 
 pebbles ready to aid any future denudation in the manu- 
 facture of gravel, and it is to this source that we must 
 trace the mixture of such with the sub-angular flints 
 that have been got direct from the Chalk. 
 
 Besides flint, there are other forms of silica present : 
 pebbles of quartz and of quartzite from older rocks, which 
 have gone through various phases of existence, and have 
 successively formed part of various beds ; removed from 
 their parent rocks, rounded and deposited in the pebble- 
 beds of the New Red Sandstone ; disinterred after long 
 ages, to contribute to the formation of some of the 
 older Drifts, on the partial destruction of which they 
 were transferred to their present resting-place. More 
 
72 BIVBB DKIFT. 
 
 rarely, too, there occur pieces of chert from the Lower 
 Greensand, and fragments of Tertiary greywether-sand- 
 stone. 
 
 There are often many pieces of chalk where the gravel 
 rests on that formation : indeed, there are cases of a bed 
 of chalk -rubble at the bottom ; but of the Jurassic lime- 
 stones over which the river passes in the higher part of 
 its course there are rarely any traces, on account, pro- 
 bably, of their dissolution by water, to the solvent action 
 of which they must have been long exposed in their 
 passage down the valley. 
 
 The gravel, which is rarely over 20 feet thick, is 
 often rather ferruginudus, and sometimes parts are 
 cemented together by oxide of iron. Layers of sand 
 often occur, and sometimes form almost the whole of 
 the deposit, replacing the gravel. The spaces between 
 the stones are of course for the most part filled in with 
 sand. 
 
 Bt-ickearth. 
 
 Above London the gravel is sometimes overlain by a 
 brown loam, of no great thickness, which is largely 
 worked for bricks, and is also much cultivated for 
 market-gardens, its soil being very suitable for the 
 growth of fruit and vegetables. This brickearth varies 
 from a clayey sand to a sandy clay, and sometimes con- 
 tains a few flints and pebbles, and it has been considered 
 to be a deposit from flood-waters. 
 
 In the valley of the Thames below London a more 
 interesting set of deposits occurs, at Ilford, Grays, 
 Brith, and Orayford, where thicker beds of brickearth 
 are worked. This brickearth is often laminated and 
 interbedded with gravel and sand, and it contains land 
 and fresh-water shells and mammalian bones, as also do 
 some of the more sandy beds. The finely-bedded 
 character of the clayey material points to tranquil con- 
 ditions of deposit somewhat different to those of the 
 gravels and sands, which so often show current-bedding. 
 
 Like fossiliferous beds occur within the Metropolitan 
 area, and may be seen at Stoke Newington, though at 
 Hackney I believe they are not now open to view. 
 Fossils have also been found at Brentford, in a railway- 
 section now hidden. 
 
RIVER DRIFT. 73 
 
 Fossils. 
 
 The chief interest of the River Drift, from a zoologi- 
 cal point of view, lies in the many remains of niam- 
 malia that it has yielded. Of these, some are of 
 species still living in our island, such as the cat, fox, 
 otter, red deer, roe-deer, pig, and field-mouse ; whilst 
 others are either known to have lived therein during 
 the historic period, or are but slightly different from 
 their present representatives, as the wolf and a species 
 of ox and of horse. But besides these, there are the 
 bones of large carnivorous animals ; amongst others of 
 a variety of lion, associated with remains of other mam- 
 mals, such as hyenas and bears, of which luckily there 
 are no descendants to trouble us at the present day. 
 There have been found, too, remains of bison, of the 
 musk-sheep, of the large-horned Irish Elk and of 
 the beaver, and, most notable perhaps of all, we know 
 that England was then tenanted by two kinds of 
 elephant and three of rhinoceros, as well as by a 
 hippopotamus. 
 
 The shells of these deposits are all of land and fresh- 
 water kinds, belonging to the genera Selix, LimncBa, 
 Planorhis, Bythmia, Faludvna, &o., amongst univalves, 
 and to Sphcerium (Cyclas), Fisidium, TJnio, Anodon, &o., 
 amongst bivalves. Most of the species are the same as 
 those living in our country now ; but there are three 
 exceptions, a univalve {Sydrobia marginata), a freshwater 
 mussel (UnioUttoraUs),wh.ich,though. living in France, is 
 extinct with us, and a smaller and sometimes abundant 
 bivalve shell {Oorbicula, or Gyrena, JhtmrnaUs)' extinct in 
 Europe, but still living in the Nile^ 
 
 Mint Implements. 
 
 At the time when the first two editions of this work 
 were published worked flints, of the age of the 
 River Gravel, had been but rarely met with in our 
 district, save for the 22 implements and 160 flakes 
 found by Lieut.-Gen. Pitt-Rivers, at Acton and Baling, 
 the other places recorded being, in Middlesex, High- 
 bury and Hackney ; and in Kent, near Farnborough, 
 (Green Street Green), Dartford Heath, and some places 
 away from any gravel deposit. Since then, however, 
 great numbers have been found, chiefly through the 
 
74 
 
 RIVER DRIFT. 
 
 zeal of Mr. Worthington Smith, in the northern and 
 north-eastern suburbs of London. He has added the 
 following to our list of implement-yielding localities. 
 "West of the Lea, Stamford Hill, Clapton, Homerton, 
 and Stoke' Newington; down the Lea valley, on the 
 western side, Waltham Cross, Forty Hill, Enfield, 
 Edmonton and Tottenham, on the eastern side, Waltham- 
 stow and Leyton ; Bast of the Lea, Leytonstone, Wan- 
 stead, Stratford, West Ham, Plaistow, and East Ham ; 
 and, east of the Eoding, Ilford, Barking and Grays. 
 Many of the localities classed by Mr. Smith as in the 
 valley of the Lea (such as Hackney) belong more 
 properly to the valley of the Thames, the old deposits 
 of which are cut through by the Lea for some miles, 
 the tributary valley being there included in that of the 
 main river. 
 
 Mr. F. Spurrell has found implements in various 
 parts , of West Kent, as at Brith, Northfleet and Hayes ; 
 whilst at Orayf ord he hit upon the site where tools had 
 been made, and was able to piece together a number of 
 flakes, round an implement, so as to reconstruct the 
 original flint nodule that had been worked. 
 
 Mr. J. A. Brown has found many specimens in and 
 around Baling, in some places in profusion. 
 
 Sections. 
 
 Openings in the old river-gravel are of frequent oc- 
 currence in London, in excavations for buildings, &c. ; 
 whilst in the neighbourhood the gravel is largely dug 
 for road-material. Where the brickearth is thin it is 
 often worked off, leaving the underlying gravel at the 
 surface. 
 
 The sections in the valley of the Thames below 
 London, which are the largest and by far the most in- 
 teresting, have for many years been favourite spots for 
 geological excursions. From the extent of the work- 
 ings, especially at Crayford and Brith, fresh exposures 
 are constantly laid open, and therefore they repay 
 constant examination. At Erith masses of the older 
 Tertiary beds have been found above the Valley Drift, 
 probably the remains of an old landslip, and there are 
 sometimes many broken shells of the Woolwich Beds in 
 the gravel and loam. 
 
RIVEB DRIFT. 
 NORTH OF THE THAMES. 
 
 75 
 
 Place of Section of Kiver Drift. 
 
 Beds sho-wn. 
 
 Bitckinghamshire. 
 
 
 Slough. — Brickyards 
 
 Brickearth over gravel. 
 
 Stoke Pogis, Upton, &c. — Pits - 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Middlesex. 
 
 
 Hillingdonlp. 
 Hayes / "^"^ 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 West Drayton 1 « . , , 
 Southall |iJ"ckyards - 
 
 Brickearth over gravel. 
 
 Hanwell.— Pit W. of Asylum - 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Acton. — Brickyards eastward of (flint im- 
 
 
 plements have been found in gravel 
 
 
 at Acton) - 
 
 Brickearth. 
 
 Shepperton. — Brickyards near Halliford - 
 
 Brickearth. 
 
 Highbury. — Brickyards (a flint implement 
 
 
 has been found here) ? abandoned 
 
 Brickearth and gravel. 
 
 Stoke Newington. — Brickyards on S. 
 
 Brickearth (with shells). 
 
 
 gravel, and sand. 
 
 Upper Clapton. — Brickyard E. of Rail- 
 
 
 way Station - . - . 
 
 Brickearth (with bones). 
 
 Old Ford, N. of Bow.— Pit 
 
 Gravel, sand and brick- 
 
 
 earth. 
 
 Kingsbury (Brent Valley). — Pits 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Tottenham (Lea Valley). — Brickyard 
 
 
 on W. - 
 
 Brickearth and gravel. 
 
 Tottenham, Edmonton, &c. (Lea Valley). 
 
 
 —Pits - . - 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Ponders End (Lea Valley). — Brickyards - 
 
 Brickearth over gravel. 
 
 Enfield Highway (Lea VaUey).— Brick- 
 
 
 yard - - . - . 
 
 Brickearth. 
 
 Southgate (Lea Valley).— Pit by Railway 
 
 
 Station .... 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Essex. 
 
 
 Leyton — Pits (Junction of Lea and 
 
 
 Thames Valleys) ... 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Plaistow, Ac— Pits 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Ilford. — Brickyards - - . 
 
 Brickearth, gravel, and 
 
 
 sand, with shells and 
 
 
 bones. 
 
 Aveley. — Pit - . . . 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 West Thurrock.— Chalk-pits 
 
 Sand and gravel, ending oif 
 
 
 abruptly against the 
 
 
 Chalk. 
 
 Grays. — Brickyards and Chalk-pits. The 
 
 Brickearth, gravel, and 
 
 brickearth not now worked. 
 
 sand, with shells and 
 
 
 bones. 
 
 Theydon Bois (Roding Valley). — Pit on S. 
 
 Gravel. 
 
76 
 
 RIVER DRIFT. 
 SOUTH OF THE THAMES. 
 
 Place of Section of River Drift. 
 
 Beds shown. 
 
 Surrey. 
 
 Egham. —Pit on E. - 
 
 Croydon (and on N.)— Piis (Wandle Val- 
 ley) . . - . 
 
 Wandsworth Common \-p-^ 
 Clapham Common j 
 
 Peckliam. — Brickyard on E- 
 
 Kent. 
 
 Lee (small side-valley). — Burntash Lane 
 Brickyard, abandoned 
 
 Lewisham and N.W. of Southend (Ea- 
 
 vensbourne Valley). — Pits 
 East Wickham. — Brickyards on N. 
 Erith. — Large Brickyard on S., not worked 
 
 now'. 
 
 Erith. — Brickyard at Northcnd - 
 Crayford. — Largo Brickyard on N.E. 
 
 Darlford Brent, S.E. of tlie town.— Pit - 
 
 Dartford Hcpth. — Brickyard and pits 
 
 Bexley (Cray Valley).— Pit on W. 
 
 St. Paul's Cray (Cray Valley).— Brick- 
 yard (left side of valley) 
 
 Dartford. — Brickyard on S. (Darent Val- 
 ley) - 
 
 Greenhithe. — Chalk -pits - 
 
 N"orthfleet. — Pits for brickyard 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Brickearth. 
 
 Brickearth (bones 
 been found). 
 
 have 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Brickearth, with bones. 
 
 Brickearth, gravel, and 
 sand, with bones and 
 shells. 
 
 Brickearth and gravel. 
 
 Brickearth, gravel, and 
 sand, with bones and 
 shells. Flint flakes 
 (worked by man) have 
 been found. 
 
 Gravel, loam, and chalky 
 clay (with bones, and with 
 shells derived from the 
 Woolwich Beds) over 
 Chalk. 
 
 Brickearth, sand, and gravel. 
 
 Gravel. 
 
 Brickearth over gravel. 
 
 Brickearth and gravel. 
 Gravel. 
 
 Brickearth, gravel, and 
 sand. 
 
 Those sections not in the Valley of the Thames have the names of 
 their respective valleys in brackets. 
 
 For details, sec The Geology of London, t^^. 393-420, 425-451. 
 
alluvium. 77 
 
 2. Modern River-deposits. 
 
 We have no-w come to the last and newest deposits of 
 the district, begun in pre-'historio times, but continued 
 until, by human agency, in the embankment and canal- 
 isation of rivers, their formation has been suspended or 
 checked. 
 
 After the period of the River Drift, when the land 
 had sunk somewhat, when our island had become 
 separated from the mainland, and when the present 
 condition of things had begun, the smaller and more 
 sluggish river became unable to carry coarse material 
 and to form gravel : its enfeebled power was equal only 
 to meandering in the bottom of its valley, cutting a 
 channel through the gravel and other beds with which 
 it came in contact, and depositing the layers of mud 
 and silt which form the marshy flats that fringe it in 
 most parts of its course. 
 
 These modern alluvial deposits are confined to the 
 very bottoms of the valleys in which streams run, and do 
 not occur at various levels above the streams, as do the 
 older river-deposits last treated of. 
 
 It is notable that for many miles above London there 
 are but very narrow strips of alluvium or marshland 
 along the sides of the Thames, the modern river seeming 
 to have been confined to a comparatively narrow channel 
 in the low gravel-flat through which it runs. Below 
 London, however, it is very different, and the river is 
 bordered on either side by broad marshes, the level of 
 which is some feet below that of high water, but which 
 are now never flooded, on account of the river- wall that 
 protects them. It would seem that the founders of our 
 great city were led to choose its site where, in ascending 
 the stream (broad at high tide, and comparatively narrow 
 at low water) they first .came to a dry gravel-plain of 
 some extent, which, whilst free from flood and yet close 
 to the water at all states of the tide, was nevertheless 
 but little above the level of the river, that - in its turn 
 gave constant access to the sea, and so to other lands. 
 
 The deep trenches dug in the marshes on either side 
 of the Thames below Woolwich during the progress of the 
 main-drainage works, laid open a bed that is rarely to 
 be seen. It is a layer of peat, some feet in thickness, 
 which underlies the silt or consolidated mud that forms 
 the upper part of the alluvium. This peat contains not 
 
78 ALLUVIUM. 
 
 only leaves and twigs, but also trunks of trees, chiefly, I 
 believe, of yew, but also of oak, pine, and otters, and 
 the stools or roots of these have also been found pene- 
 trating into the underlying gravel. This bed, therefore, 
 is one of those submerged forests, as they are called, 
 that are found at so many places on our coast, at the 
 mouths of rivers or streams. The explanation of their 
 occurrence is that the trees must have grown where they 
 are found, when the land was at a rather higher level 
 than now, and on submergence they were covered by 
 the silt from the river that overflowed them. I would 
 suggest, however, that the amount of submergence that 
 has sometimes been inferred may be a little more than 
 is needful, for the present low level of the peat-bed of 
 the Thames may be partly owing to another cause, con- 
 traction of the beds from their continued freedom from 
 inundation (and consequent drying), which process has 
 actually resulted in leaving the surface of the marsh- 
 land some feet below the level of high tide, whilst those 
 mud shores that are still flooded keep a much higher 
 level than the protected ground divided from them only 
 by the river- wall. 
 
 The peat was well shown in the deep excavations for 
 the Royal Albert Dock, more than a mile long. Here I 
 saw many large tree-trunks in it, one 30 feet long and 
 of large girth. The most interesting find, however, was 
 a canoe, or rather some 16 feet of one, hollowed out of a 
 trunk, and which I was able, through the kindness of the 
 engineers, to secure for the British Museum. 
 
 Fine sections of these deposits were also opened in the 
 works of the Tilbury Docks, where two well-marked beds 
 of peat were seen, besides other occasional layers, the 
 whole, with the inter-bedded marsh- clay, being thicker 
 than in sections higher up the river. 
 
 The old river -mud and its associated peaty beds often 
 contain bones of ox, deer, &o., and shells of freshwater 
 and land molluscs of the same species as those now 
 living. Sections are rarely made in these beds, but the 
 peat has been seen sometimes in the bed of the river at 
 low water. 
 
 Details are given in The Geology of London, pp. 4i57- 
 475. 
 
MADE GROUND. 79 
 
 3. Made Ground. 
 
 In London, as in most large towns, there is a very 
 general deposit of a purely artificial character, the result 
 of the growth of the city, and of the changes that have 
 taken place during a long time. In London this made 
 earth is often of considerable thickness, and eflfectually 
 masks the beds beneath, old stream-courses being more 
 or less filled up and their peaty deposits hidden, and some 
 small clay-slopes being, as it were, artificially covered 
 with a sort of gravel. On the London Model there are 
 some very small areas which, though coloured as gravel, 
 really consist of a mass of this deposit hiding an old 
 swamp or an outcrop of London Clay. 
 
 Many notes of this Made Ground are scattered through 
 The Geology of London, especially in vol. ii. (see index to 
 each vol.) 
 
80 
 
 CHAPTER 7. 
 
 CAUSES THAT HAVE BROUGHT ABOUT THE 
 PRESENT FEATURES OF THE DISTRICT. 
 
 The nature of ail the fofmations and their usual 
 features having been described in the foregoing pages, 
 we can now consider the agencies that have effected 
 those changes on the surface which have resulted in the 
 present form of the ground. These subjects group 
 themselves under two heads: firstly, the underground 
 movements which have tended to shift beds from the 
 more or less horizontal positions that they originally had, 
 and secondly, the natural forces that have tended to 
 their destruction and removal at the surface. 
 
 1. Disturbances of the Beds and their Results. 
 
 The beds in the neighbourhood of London are free from 
 those foldings so often to be seen in districts composed 
 of the older rocks, and the sudden displacements known 
 as faults are both rare and small ; nevertheless the whole 
 tract has been subjected to a disturbance, which, though 
 comparatively trifling in its amount of displacement, is 
 of very wide extent, both in length and breadth. The 
 disturbance in question is that which has caused the 
 more or less parallel rolls that have resulted in bringing 
 up the lower beds, in a gentle saddle-back, along the 
 line of the "Weald, with, on either side, the equally gentle 
 troughs of the higher beds known as the Hampshire and 
 the London Basins. A glance at the sections published 
 by the Geological Survey, which are drawn to the same 
 scale horizontally and vertically, will best show the 
 gentle character of this inward dip of the beds in the 
 London Basin, and correct any previous notion of great 
 disturbance that may have been formed; indeed, the 
 sections of the model perhaps show lower angles of dip 
 than are commonly supposed to occur, although these 
 are somewhat exaggerated, from the vertical scale being 
 greater than the horizontal. 
 
DISTURBANCES. 81 
 
 The main trough is modified by smaller and more local 
 lines of disturbance, such as those which bring up the 
 Chalk to the surface in various places along the Valley 
 of the Thames (at Windsor, from Deptf ord eastward, and 
 between Purfleet and Grays), as well as between Bromley 
 and Ohiselhurst, or those which are less effective, causing 
 merely inliers of some division of the Lower London 
 Tertiaries, as at Eltham and Bromley (Kent). 
 
 There are also occasional faults (or fractures with 
 displacement), but these are too small to be shown on a 
 map, with the exception of one, which, running along 
 the Thames Valley for some miles eastward from near 
 New Cross, and sometimes with a downthrow on the 
 north of 100 feet or more, has resulted in bringing the 
 Blackheath pebble-bed against the Chalk, the same bed 
 that occurs along the hUl-top, over Plumstead Common 
 and Abbey Wood, being also found beneath the marsh- 
 land at the foot of the slope. 
 
 It is still, I fear, too commonly thought that the 
 surface-features of the earth are directly due to the 
 disturbing causes which have moved beds from their 
 original positions, that the valleys are great cracks, and 
 that the hills are areas of elevation. Now, although lines 
 of disturbance may have often guided the forces that 
 have actually cax'ved out hills and valleys, yet such lines 
 have in no way formed these features. Moreover, it 
 will often be seen that the present surface-feature does 
 not follow the underground arrangement of the beds, 
 except, perhaps, in direction, for a hill may be found to 
 be a geological trough, and a valley a geological saddle, 
 and on examination this apparent paradox is easily 
 explained, for it is where beds have been uplifted, and 
 consequently dip outward, that they are more favour- 
 ably exposed to those agencies which constantly tend to 
 their destruction, whilst where they dip inward there is 
 less tendency for their parts to separate and fall away. 
 It is to these agencies that we must now turn to account 
 for the present state of our district. 
 
 2. Denudation, its Nature and Effects. 
 
 On looking at a geological section, it will be seen that 
 
 beds end off abruptljr on hill-slopes (in such a district as 
 
 ours) ; but that their original limit of deposition can 
 
 have been thus the least reflection will show to be 
 
 y eo5ia, f 
 
82 DENUDATION. 
 
 impossible; they must once hare stretolied farther, and 
 their present limit must therefore be owing to the parts- 
 beyond haviag been carried away. We have evidence of 
 this erosion, or wearing away of beds, in the occurrence 
 of outliers, or patches separated from the main mass, 
 and often many miles from it, the tract between having 
 been bared of the beds in question. 
 
 The only agent that is now doing this work, the only 
 one of which we can see any sign in past times, is water, 
 in some form or other, and this is indeed the only agent 
 capable of doing the vast work of denudation. Every 
 wave that beats oh the shore aids in the breaking up or 
 the removal of sand, shingle, or rock ; every stream, 
 however small and sluggish, carries, down earth in its 
 course, nay more, every drop of rain that falls on the 
 ground aids in the moving of some particle of earth. 
 
 The question that remains, then, is in what form has 
 water done' its work in our district? At the first 
 thought, the vastness of the sea, and the fact that its 
 power can be seen on our coasts, naturally lead people 
 to infer that this has been the great agent in doing 
 the work of denudation ; but when we examine the 
 district we find no trace of any late submergence, 
 all the newest beds being of freshwater origin, and 
 when we examine the sea's action we find that it results 
 in the planing down and levelling of land rather than in 
 the cutting out' of valleys. -' 
 
 Turning then our eyes to the other great form of 
 water, streams and rivers, we find that iihese have a con- 
 stant action in wearing away the rocks over which they 
 pass, carrying down the loosened or dissolved matter in 
 their course; and by measuring the quantity of solid 
 matter carried down by a certain quantity of water, 
 either in suspension or in solution, and calculating the 
 amount of water flowing down the stream, we get the 
 data needful for estimating the total quantity brought 
 down in any given time. ' By these means it has been 
 shown that in bur island far ' more erosion, or wearing 
 away of land, is now being done by rain and rivers than 
 by the sea. It becomes indeed a question of time to a 
 great extent, and we are led to conclude that the cease- 
 ' less actions of streams, aided by rain and frost (the last 
 being a powerful disintegrator of rocks), during a long 
 period, has been the great means af carving out our 
 -present system of hill and valley. . _ - . ■ , . . 
 
DENUDATION. 83 
 
 The marvellous effects of erosion in clearing away 
 a great thickness of solid earth is perhaps best seen by 
 mentally reconstructing, as it were, the former state of 
 certain spots ; thus the greater part of the London Clay, 
 with some of the Lower Bagshot Sand, has been carried 
 away from the valley of the Thames at London, whilst 
 lower down the river, as at Purfleet, where the Chalk is 
 now at the surface, the whole mass of the Tertiary beds 
 (from the Lower Bagshot Series to the Thanet Sand), 
 amounting to a thickness of more than 500 feet, has 
 been removed. 
 
 It has been said before that the Chalk here and else- 
 where has been brought up by disturbance : this must 
 of course be understood in the sense that through a 
 disturbance having brought the Chalk to a compara- 
 tively high level, subsequent denudation has laid bare 
 that rock. 
 
 Were it not for disturbing' agencies, therefore, we 
 should not have various beds brought up so as to be 
 within reach of the eroding forces, the work of which 
 would be more limited to the higher beds ; and were it 
 not for erosion we should not have the variety of surface 
 that adds such charm to our scenery, through the 
 exposure of lower beds by the partial wearing off of 
 those above, and from the varying outline that has 
 resulted during the process. 
 
 3. Formation op the Valley of the Thames. 
 
 As a very large, and certainly the most important, 
 part of our district consists of a part of this valley, 
 which runs through from west to east, I may fairly re- 
 produce, with some slight changes, the few remarks on 
 its formation contributed to " Dickens's Dictionary of 
 the Thames " (1880 and later editions). 
 
 In common with the valleys of our Other rivers, that 
 of the Thames has been formed by erosion : it has been 
 cut out by the slow ceaseless action of the river, ever 
 tending to deepen and widen its channel, aided greatly 
 by the action of rain on the slopes, and, in the limestone- 
 districts, by the solvent power of carbonated water. 
 There is no great gap or open fissure formed by the 
 giving way of the earth, no sign of disruption, or of 
 sudden violent action. 
 
 U 60515. G 
 
84 DENUDA.TION. 
 
 That disturbances of the beds have had some effect in 
 the formation of the valley is not however questioned ; 
 but their effect has been merely to dvrect m some cases 
 the course which the eroding agents should follow, by 
 making a certain course easier than any other, ihus 
 where the Thames cuts through the great range ot 
 Chalk hills below Wallingford there are signs of some 
 disturbance, for the strike, or general trend of the beds, 
 changes from a direction about west and east to one 
 about south-west and north-east; but none the less 
 has the valley been formed by the cutting away of the 
 Chalk. Again, though from Greenwich to Erith a 
 fault occurs along the right bank, and may have greatly 
 aided the erosive action of the old river ; yet none the 
 less has that part of the valley been formed by the 
 wearing away and carrying off of a vast mass of beds, 
 hundreds of feet thick. Below Erith however the river 
 crosses this line of disturbance, which reappears, on the 
 left bank, by Purfleet and Stifford, though whether as a 
 fault or not is uncertain. 
 
 When we look across the wide valley of our chief 
 river, and realise the facts that all the material which 
 once filled it has been slowly loosened and carried away 
 by actions like in kind to those now going on around us, 
 though to a large extent perhaps greater in power, and 
 that this work has been done in the very latest of the 
 ro^ny great geological periods, we may then begin to 
 have a glimmering notion of the immensity of time that 
 must have been taken up by the never-ceasing processes 
 of erosion and deposition that have built up the succes- 
 sive sedimentary formations which compose the greater 
 part of our earth's surface. The destruction of rocks in 
 one district has yielded material for the formation of 
 newer rooks elsewhere ; and these actions, accompanied 
 by upward and downward movements in slow succession, 
 have gone on side by side for countless ages. 
 
85 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sections of the Lower London Teetiakies. 
 
 It having been thought desirable to add to the fourth 
 edition of this work some of the figures from the Memoir 
 on the London Basin, five general vertical sections 
 were selected, as showing details of the beds to be 
 seen in some of the best pits open to view. To these 
 another is now added from The Geology of London. 
 
 Of these six sections three are on the S.E. of London, 
 being taken from the large and well-known sections 
 at Loam Pit Hill, near Lewisham, at Charlton, and at 
 Erith ; the other three, to the north of London, being 
 at the Harefield Cement and Brickworks and at brick- 
 yards near Watford, the latter of which, though having 
 much smaller pits than the others, are not unknown to 
 geologists. All are on the same scale, 8 feet to an inch 
 vertically. The Harefield section is the only one in 
 Middlesex that goes down from the London Clay to the 
 Chalk. It has been cut back of late years, and, until 
 1889, was undescribed as far as regards all above the 
 pebbly base of the Reading Beds. 
 
 A fuller account of these sections than is here given 
 will be found in the Memoir on The Geology of London, 
 etc., a certain amount of grouping having been resorted 
 to, in order not to cumber this sketch with too much of 
 detailed description, but it has been attempted here to 
 correlate the beds, so as to show, as far as could be done, 
 their changes in thickness and character, and for this 
 purpose corresponding beds have been marked by the 
 same figure in the southern and by the same letter in the 
 northern sections. 
 
 On the plate are general descriptions of the two sets 
 of sections, which differ in the absence of the Oldhaven 
 
86 
 
 and Blacklieath Beds and of tlie Thanet Sand on tlie 
 north, where too the series between lacks the estuarine 
 shell-beds of Woolwich. As some compensation for the 
 absence of these last fossil-bearing beds, we have 
 however on the north a much more marked development 
 of the loamy basement-bed of the London Clay, with its 
 marine fossils. 
 
 In arranging the figures the top of the Chalk has been 
 taken as a datum-line. 
 
t.7 
 
 INDEX OP PLACES. 
 
 The Names in Italics are those of Places beyond 
 the District described. 
 
 Abbey Wood, 10„37, 43, 81. 
 Acton, 6, 9, 73, 75. 
 Addington, 35, 42, 43, 45. 
 Albert Docks, 78. 
 Aldenham, 40. 
 Aldersgate, 13. 
 Ardennes, 21. 
 Aveley, 38, 50, 75. 
 
 Balham, 11. 
 
 Barking, 10, 13, 74. 
 
 Bamet, 52, 60. 
 
 Battersea Park, 11. 
 
 Battle, 22. 
 
 Beckenbam, 43, 44, 50, 52. 
 
 Beddington, 37. 
 
 Belvidere, 43. 
 
 Bermondsey, 38, 50. 
 
 Bexley, 35, 43, 45. 
 
 Bishopsgate, 12, 13. 
 
 Blackheath, 33, 34, 43, 44. 
 
 Blackmore, 56. 
 
 Bostal Heatb, 37, 44. 
 
 Brentford, 72. 
 
 Brentwood, 52, 56, 63. 
 
 Bricket Wood, 65. 
 
 Bromley (Kent), 9, 12, 31, 36, 38, 43, 
 
 44, 52, 81. 
 Bromley by Bow, 13. 
 Buckhurst Hill, 52, 65. 
 Buckingham Palace, U. 
 Bushey (Herts), 24, 26, 31, 41, 65, 
 
 table, plate. 
 
 Camberwell, 38, 50. 
 Camden Park, 10, 31. 
 Canterbury, 29. 
 
 Caterham, 19, 24, 29, 42, table. 
 
 ChalfontB, Tbe, 39, 41, 65. 
 
 Chalk Farm, 51. 
 
 Charley Wood, 41, 65. 
 
 Charlton, 31, 37, 40, 41, 44, 85, plate. 
 
 Chartham, table. 
 
 Chatham, 20, 22, 24, table. 
 
 Chattenden, 20, table. 
 
 Chertsey, 53-56. 
 
 Cheshunt, 17, 22, 24, 25, table. 
 
 ChiselhuTSt, 10, 31, 36-88, 42, 46, 52, 
 
 81. 
 Chingford, 51. 
 Chobham, 55. 
 
 Clapham Common and Park, 11, 13, 76. 
 Clapton, 74, 75. 
 Cobham, 55. 
 Combe Wood, 9. 
 Coombs, table. 
 
 Crayford, 36, 37, 72, 74, 76. 
 Crocken Hill, 61. 
 Crossness, 14, 17, 21-23, table. 
 Croydon, 30, 31, 35, 37, 39, 43-46, 50, 
 
 52, 76. 
 
 Darent, 37. 
 
 Dartford, 31, 37, 73, 76. 
 Deptford, 36, 81. 
 Ditton, 50. 
 Dover, 20, table. 
 Sulwich, 38, 41, 50. 
 
 Ealing, 73. 
 
 East Ham, 13, 74. 
 
 East Horstey, table. 
 
 East'Sheen, 9. 
 
 East Wickham, 41, 76, plate. 
 
88 
 
 Eaton Square, 11. 
 
 Edmonton, 74, 75. 
 
 Egham, 52, 54, 56, 76. 
 
 Eltham, 10, 36, 44, 81. 
 
 Enfield, 74, 75. 
 
 Epping, 60, 65. 
 
 Epsom, 30, 35, 37, 38, 41, 45, 50, 52. 
 
 Eriih, 36, 37, 41, 44, 45, 72, 74, 76, 
 
 84, 85, plate. 
 Esher, 63. 
 Ewell, 37, 41. 
 
 Farnborough, 35, 41. 
 FarrJiam, 46. 
 Farningham, 36, 46. 
 EincHey, 64, 65. 
 EorestHill, 50, 52. 
 Forty Hill, 74. 
 Frindsbury, 20, table. 
 Frame, 23. 
 
 Gravesend, 31, 37. 
 
 Grays, 26,31, 36, 37, 47, 72, 74, 75, 81. 
 
 Greenhithe, 31, 76. 
 
 Green Park, 11. 
 
 Greenwich, 45, 84. 
 
 GrosTenor Square, 11, 13. 
 
 Guildford, 40. 
 
 Hackney, 72-74. • 
 
 Halesworth, 60. 
 
 Hampstead, 11, 51, 52, S5, 56. 
 
 Hanwell, 75. 
 
 Harefield, 31, 41, 65, 85, plate. 
 
 Harrow, 55. 
 
 Harwich, 16, 21, table. 
 
 Havering, 56. 
 
 Hayes (Kent), 43, 45. 
 
 Hayes (Middlesex), 75. 
 
 Hedgerley, 38, 39, 5Q, 51, 65. 
 
 Hendon, 50. 
 
 Heme Hill, 13. 
 
 High Beech, 56, 60. 
 
 Highbury, 73, 75. 
 
 Highgate, 11, 22, 49, 52, 55, 56. 
 
 Hillingdon, 75. 
 
 Holbom, 13. 
 
 Holkham, 19, table. 
 
 Homerton, 74. 
 
 Button, 65. 
 
 Ilford, 10, 11, 72, 74, 75. 
 Isle of Wight, 46. 
 
 Jack's Hill, 60. 
 Jerden's Wood, 38. 
 
 Kelredon Common, ^5. 
 
 Kentish Town, 11, 14, 16, 21-23, 25, 
 
 table. 
 Keston, 35. 
 Kingsbury, 75. 
 Kingston, 52. 
 
 Lane End, 47. 
 
 Leatherhead, 35. 
 
 Ledbury, 19. 
 
 Lee, 14, 76. 
 
 Lewisham, 12, 14, 31, 37, 40. 41, 50, 
 
 85, plate. 
 Leyton, 11, 75. 
 Leytonstone, 11, 74. 
 Little Tharrock, 36. 
 London Docks, 12. 
 Loughton, 17, 25, table. 
 
 Maidstone, 20. 
 
 Marlborough, 54. 
 
 Mendips, 21. 
 
 Merton, 9, 48. 
 
 Meux's Brewery, 17, 21-23, 25, table. 
 
 Mile End, 20, table. 
 
 Mortlake, 9. 
 
 Mottingham, 50. 
 
 Mountnessing Street, 65. 
 
 New Gross, 12, 41, 81. 
 Northfleet, 31, 76. 
 Northumberland Heath, 44. 
 
89 
 
 Norwich, table. 
 Norwood, 9, 50. 
 Notting Hill, 12. 
 
 Old Ford, 75. 
 
 Orsett, 50. 
 
 Oxford Street, 11,12, 17. 
 
 Peckham, 76. 
 
 Peckham Rye, 14. 
 
 Penge, 9, 5Z. 
 
 Pinner, 39, 41. 
 
 Plaistow, 13, 74, 75. 
 
 Plumstead, 26, 37. 
 
 Plumstead Common, 10, 37, 41, 44, 52, 
 
 81. 
 Ponders End, 75. 
 Purfleet, 31, 36, 37,47, 81, 83,84. 
 Putney Heath, 13. 
 
 Badlett, 52, 65. 
 Beculvers, 83. 
 Regent's Park, 11. 
 Beigate, 25. 
 
 Richmond, 18, 19, 22, 2S, table. 
 Richmond Park, 9, 13, 49, 64. 
 Rickmansworth, 39,41. 
 Riddlesdown, 80. 
 Rotherhithe, 12, 38. 
 Ruislip, 41. 
 
 St. Margaret's, table. 
 
 St. Mary's Cray, 37. 
 
 St. Paul's Cray, 76. 
 
 Sanderstead, 42. 
 
 Shenley, 40, 52, 60. 
 
 Shepherd's Bush, 12. 
 
 Shepperton, 75. 
 
 Sheppey, 49. 
 
 Shooter's Hill, 10, 14, 43, 45, 50, 60. 
 
 Slough, 75. 
 
 Southall, 75. 
 
 Southampton, 29. 
 
 Southend (Kent), 12. 
 
 Southgate, 65, 75. 
 
 Southweald, 66. 
 
 Southwold, 60. 
 
 Spitalfields, 12. 
 
 Stamford Hill, II, 12, 74. 
 
 Stanmore Heath, 51, 60. 
 
 Stifflord, 31, 36, 38, 52, 84. 
 
 Stoke Common, 65. 
 
 Stoke Ne'wington, 12, 72, 74, 75. 
 
 Stoke Poges, 75. 
 
 Stondon Massey, 65. 
 
 Stratford, 13, 74. 
 
 Streatham Common and Park, 9, 11, 
 
 19, table. 
 Strood, table. 
 Suudridge Park, 10. 
 Sutton (Surrey), 31, 50, 52. 
 Swanscomb, 36, 38, 47. 
 Swanley, 36, 37. 
 Sydenham, 50, 51. 
 
 Theydon Bois, 75. 
 Theydon Mount, 52, 65. 
 Tilbury, 78. 
 Tooting, 9. 
 
 Tottenham, 52, 74, 75. 
 Tottenham Court Road, 17, table. 
 Totteridge, 60. 
 Tumford, 17, table. 
 Turnham Green, 9, 12. 
 
 XJpminster, 52. 
 Upton, 75. 
 Uxbridge, 38, 50, 52. 
 TJxbridge Road, 12. 
 
 Vauxhall, 11. 
 Virginia Water, 56. 
 
 Wallingford, 84. 
 Waltham Abbey, 51. 
 Waltham Cross, 74. 
 
no 
 
 Walthamstow, 74. 
 
 Wandsworth Commou, 13, 76. 
 
 Wanstead, 11,74. 
 
 Ware, 18, 21, 23, 24, table. 
 
 Wargrave, 47. 
 
 Waxley, 52, 56. 
 
 Watford, 24, 31, 63, 65, 85, plate. 
 
 Well HiU, 36, 38, 46, 66. 
 
 Wennington, 38, 50 
 
 West Drayton, 75. 
 
 West Ham, 13, 74. 
 
 WestThurrook, 31, 37. 
 
 Weybridge, 53, 56. 
 
 Whetstone, 51, 65. 
 
 Willesden, 9. 
 
 Wimbledon Common and Hill, 9, 65. 
 
 Windsor, 30, 38, 50-52, 66, 81. 
 
 Woolwich, 10, 26, 37, 40, 41, 44, 77. 
 
 London: Printed by Eteb and Spottiswoode, 
 
 Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty. 
 
 For Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 
 
 [13945.— 1000.— 12/89.] 
 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE, 
 
 Southern Outcrop {Lewisham, Charlton, Erith). 
 
 ^ London Clay. 
 
 1. Brown Clay. 
 
 2. Flint pebblos in clay and sand, j 
 
 3. Old haven and Blaokheatt Beds. Flint pebbles and sand, false-bedded 
 partly with fossils. 
 
 4. Alternations of sand and clay, mostly fiije bedded. ' 
 At Loam Pit Hill with leaves and a lignite bed (6.) 
 which contains iron-pyrites with oasts of estnarine 
 shells, 
 
 4'. Sand, sandy clay, and clay. 
 
 5. Clays, sometimes sandy, with estuarine shells (often 
 in great abundance). 
 
 tj. Yellowish, gray, or brown clay, loam, or sand, with >> Woolwich am 
 calcareous and ferruginous concretions, which contain -Keading Beds 
 shells at Charlton. At Erith mostly a crimson-mottled 
 sandy clay. 
 
 6', Sandy irregular pebble-bed (local to Loam Pit 
 Hill, and near East Wickham). 
 
 7. Light-coloured and greenish sand, partly clayey, 
 with flint pebbles, . 
 
 8. Grey and buff Thanet Sand, greenish and clayey at the lowest part, 
 and with green-coated flints at bottom. 
 
 9. Chalk with flints. 
 
 In these sections the Thanet Sand is abbreviated, to save space; it is 
 about 40 feet thick. 
 
 Northern, Outcrop (Barefield, Watford). 
 
 a. Brown Clay. 
 
 6. Brown sandy clay, with shells, ~| 
 
 c. Pebble.bed, with oyster-shells and I 
 sharks' teeth at Watford Heath. „ ^ v t j ^i 
 
 d. Brown sandy clay.with some soft sand- >^-«asement- >.London Clay, 
 stone at top. I ^^'*- 
 
 n. Flint pebbles, with oyster-shells and ' | 
 
 sharks' teeth. J J 
 
 /. Green, grey, and brown clay and clayey sand, with] 
 calcareous concretions at Bushey Kiln, with a few flint I 
 pebbles at Watford Heath ; chiefly mottled clays at | 
 Harefield. 
 
 p. Light-coloured or brown sand. f 
 
 h. Sand with flint pebbles. I 
 
 i. Sand and loam. | 
 
 fc. Flints in sand. Largely flint pebbles at Harefield, I 
 I. Chalk with flints. 
 
 SKeading Beds. 
 
 LOAM PIT HILL, LEWISHAM. 
 
 Sections of the Lower London Tertiaries 
 [N THE Neighbourhood of London. 
 
 Scale. S it to J Inrhy. 
 
 HAREFl 
 
 
 D^^.Ott^^"^ 
 
 Souiherro Outcrcp. 
 
 TOP OF THE CHALK 
 
 JuddsC? L" Lith 75 t75,Fsrnn9don R" 8, Dor tors Commons *OI.!l 99. 
 
 k 
 i 
 
 ffl 
 
 \ 
 
 
'IT HILL, LEWISHAM. 
 
 Sections of the Lower London Tertiaries 
 IN THE Neighbourhood of London. 
 
 Sc^Ue. 8 ft to 1 Ji%cfv. 
 
 GeoLcqwaL Survey: Guide, to the- Geoiogy of Loadorv. 
 
 WATFORD HEATH KILN. 
 
 HAREFIELD. 
 
 \ 3 
 
 \ 
 \ 
 \ 
 
 CHARLTON. 
 
 :*■„<;.» "is if j.-.'i ■■•■...•? : 
 ^ap%??'>x-°* :■'?,■■?■ 
 
 KS^.o 0,;? p.- "io.i 
 
 
 ^°^&V 
 
 
 O «.■ ■ • -^a 
 
 
 ^■11 
 
 / 
 
 ERITH. 
 
 ,'--.a.-. ..O- 
 
 / 0Ji_S'^ct^O^ <,lSio'a 
 
 ooe^ 
 
 ci 
 
 t 
 
 3L _, |iJ^t^^ 
 ^1 H|i]n 
 
 
 BUSHEY KILN. 
 
 / e 
 
 "y: 
 
 Sowthenv Outcrop. 
 
 TOP or THE CHALK 
 
 JiiddsC" L" Lith 73i75 Farnngdoii R"" U Donors' Commons 4-01. If- S9. 
 
 I 
 
 
 .> -t)'.'^. , «■ Q < 
 
 / /^ 
 
 
 A. 
 
 ?))|i~l))| ^ni-'Wf* III -^11 
 
 
 
 Northern- OuJjzrop. 
 
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 CHELTENHAM. ByE.HTOI,. 2s. ed. , - 
 
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 WOODSTOCK. By E. HuiL. Is. 
 
 N.W. ESSEX & N.B. HERTS. By W. Whitakbe, W. H. Pemiho,™'. h. DALTOIf, 4 P., J. BEHifETT. 3«. ed. 
 
 COLCHESTER. By W. H. Dalton. Is.ed. 
 - EASTERN END of ESSEX (WALTON NAZE and HARWICH). By W.Whitakbb. 9d. 
 NB. IPSWICH, HADLEIGH, and FELIXSTOW. By W. Whitakek, W. H. Daxios, and F. J . BEHirEiT. ts 
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 SOUTHWOLD. By W. Whitakee. 2s. 6d. 
 
 STOWMAEKET. By W. Whitakeb, F. J. BEHirEiT, and J. H. Biake. Is. 
 
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 RUTLAND, &c. By J. W. Judd. 12s. 6d. 
 SE - NORWICH. By H. B. Woodwaed. 7s. 
 
 ATTLEBOROUGH. ByP. J. Bbskett. Is.ed. 
 
 B. DEREHAM. By J. H. Blake. Is. 6d. 
 LOW ~ 
 
 1, 4, 7 - 
 4 
 IB 
 
 IS . 
 34 
 44 
 45 
 
 45 SW 
 47 
 
 48 SW 
 48 SE 
 48 NW, 
 49S,S0 
 49N 
 EOSW 
 BONW 
 fiONE 
 BISW 
 51 SE 
 E3 8E 
 53 NE 
 63 SE 
 64- 
 «6NB, 
 «6SW 
 66 NW 
 67 
 68 B 
 68 NW, 
 »0 
 
 VINE 
 WNW 
 
 79 SE 
 
 80 NW 
 80 NB 
 
 80 SW 
 
 81 NW, 
 
 82 SE 
 82 NE 
 83 
 
 84 
 86 
 87 NW 
 
 87 gW 
 
 88 8W 
 88 SB 
 88 NB 
 
 88 8E 
 
 89 SW 
 
 90 SB 
 »NB 
 81 BW 
 
 91 NW 
 
 92 SB 
 98 NW 
 »3NE 
 98 NW 
 
 SW, 
 
 SW 
 
 YARMOUTH and LOWESTOFT. By J. H. Blake. 
 CROMER. By C. Keid. 6s. 
 
 FAKE NH AM, WELLS, 4c. By H. B. WooDWABD. 2s. 
 
 S.W. LINCOLNSfllBB.Ac. By A. J. JtrKBs-BBOWME and W. H. Daitok. 4s. 
 NOTTINGHAM. By W. T. AvELiHE. .(2ndEd.) Is. 
 
 RHYL, ABEE6BLB, and COLWYN. By A, Sieahait. (Notes by R. H. Tiddbmah.) Is. 6d 
 FLINT, MOLD, and RUTHIN. By A. Sieahait (Parts by C. E. De Rauce). 
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 ALTEINCHAM, CHESHIRE. By E. Hull. 8d. (O.P.) 
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 PAETS of NOTTINGHAMSHIRE and DBEBY8HIEE. ByW.T.AVELiHB. (2ndEd.) ed 
 PAETS of NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, YORKSHIRE, and DERBYSHIRE. ByW.T.AVELiHB 8d 
 LINCOLN. By W. A. E. UssHEE, A. J. Jukes-Bbowiie, and A. Stbahah. 3s. 
 EAST LINCOLNSHIRE. By A. J. Jukes-Beowite. 3s. ed. 
 N. LINCOLNSHIRE and S. YOEKSHIEE. By W. A. E. UssHEE and Others. 
 PAETS of NOTTS, YOEKSHIRE, and DERBYSHIRE. '(2nd Ed.) By W.T.Atblihe ■ 6d 
 BAENSLEY. By A. H. Gebeit. 9d. yj.i-iajs.oa 
 
 OLDHAM. By E.Hull, ju. 
 
 FART of the YOEKSHIEE COAL-FIELD. By A. H. Geeek, J.R.DAKTirs.and J C Wam i. 
 DEWSBURY,4c. By A.H. Gbeek, J. E. Dakths, J. 0. Waed and R. Eusbbll. 6d 
 BOLTON, LANCASHIRE. ByE.HULL. 2s. " 
 
 WIGAN. By Edwaei) Hull (2nd Ed.) Is. (O.P.) 
 
 The COUNTRY between LIVERPOOL and SOCTHPOET By C. E. De Eabce. 3d (0P» 
 SOUTHPORT.LYTHAM, and SOUTH SHORE. By C. E. De Rahoe. 6d. 
 The COUNTRY between BLACKPOOL arid FLEETWOOD. By C. E. De Bah ce. Rd 
 SOUTHERN PAET of the FURNESS DISTRICT in N. LANCASHIRE. By W.T AvBiiwr firf 
 BRADFORD and SKIPTON. By J.R.DAKTifB,C. Fox-STBAiiGWATa,E.Ru8BEi,L,andW H Daltob <w 
 NORTH and EAST of HAREOGATB. By C. Fox-Stbahgwats. ed. '"'"■^^•'"«« w--ii--UAtioir.6d. 
 The COUNTEY between YOEK and MALTON. By C. Fox-Stbahowats. Is 6d. 
 CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS N. and E. of LEEDS, and the PERMIAN and TRIAPSfC «nf^Tr<!av,«„* 
 TADCASTER. By W. T. Avelinb. A. H. GeBkh, J. E. Dakths, J. C.Wasb, and BTEuiBBLL, c£ (OP.) 
 
SBSIST nXBinOZRS OF TEE GEO:bOCICA£ BVUVH'S— continued. 
 
 93SG,9iW 
 94 NW- . 
 9« XE - 
 
 95SW, 8E ■ 
 
 96 SB 
 90 NB - 
 96 NW, SW 
 98 Sli; ■ 
 98 NB- 
 101 8B 
 104 SW, 8B 
 108 SE 
 108 XE 
 108 SW 
 
 COUNTRY between YORK & HULL. By J. E. Dakths, C. Fox-Stbahowatb, and A. G.CAUBBOzr, It. 9d. 
 . DRIFFIELD. By J. E. Dakths and C. Pox-Stea»gwats. Bd. 
 BEIDLINGTOK BAY. By J. E. Daktks and C. Fox-SlBAifGWATS. 1«. 
 SCARBOROUGH and FLAMBOEOUGH HEAD. By C. Pox-Sthahowat8. 1». 
 WHITBY and SCARB0E0U6H. Bv C. Fox-SiBAirawATS and G. Babbow. 1». 6d. 
 NEW MALTON. PICKERING, and HELMSLEY. By C. Fox-SiBAKOWATB. 3». 
 ESEDALE, ROSEDALE, Ac. By C. Fox-8TBAirawATB, 0. Eeid and G, Baebow. 1». 6d. 
 NORTHALLERTON and THIRSK. By C. Pox-StBAKS-WATS, A. G. CAMEBoir, and G. Babbow. U. M. 
 KIRKBY LONSDALE and KENDAL. By W. T. Aveiike, T. ]>to K. Hughes, and E. H. Tiddbhah. *». 
 KENDAL. By W. T. AvELiVE and T. Mo K, Hughbb. 2nd Bd. by A. SiBAHAif. is. 
 NORTHERN PART of the ENGLISH LAKE DISTEICT. By J. C. WaED. 9«. 
 NORTH CLEVELAND. EfG. Babbow. U.ed. 
 
 OTTERBURN and EL8D0N. By Hugh MillSb. (Notes by C. T. ClorGB.) 2». ed. 
 CHEVIOT HILLS. By C. T. OlojTGH. l«. 6d. 
 PLASHETTS and KIELDFR. By C. T. CIOUGH. 1«. 
 
 THE MINERAL DISTRICTS OF EfMCLAND AND WALES. 
 
 COAL-FIELDS OF EHGLAHU Alt WALES. 
 
 Scale, one inch to a mile, 
 Anglesey, 78 (8W). 
 Bristol and Somersnt, 19, 83. 
 Ooaltnroak Dale, 61 ' NE & BE). 
 01eeHill,5S(NB,NW). 
 
 Flintshire and Senl nghshire, 7i (NE & SE ) , 79 (NE, SE) . 
 JDerby and Yorkshit e. 71 (NW NK 4 SE), 82 (NW ft S\\), 
 
 81 (NE),87 (NE, 8E),88 (SE). 
 Vorest of Dean, 43 (SE &SW}. 
 Forest of Wyre, eiJSE), 65 (NE). 
 Lancashire, 80 (NW),81 (NW), 89,88 (SW, NW). 
 Leicestershire, 71 (SW), 68 (N W). 
 
 Korthnmberland & Durhaw,103, 106,106 (SE), 109{8W,SE). 
 W.8tafrordshire,72 (NW),72 (8W),7S(NE),80 (SE),81(SW). 
 8. Staffordshire. 54 (NW), es (SW). 
 Shrewsbury. 60 (NK), 61 (NW & SW). 
 South Wales, 36, 37, 33, 40, 41, 42 (SE, SW). 
 Warwickshire, 62 (NB SE), (i3 (NW SW), 54 (NE).68 (NW). 
 Yorkshire, 88 (NB, SE), 87 (SW), 92 (SE). 93 (SW). 
 
 UEOLOCIGAL MAPS. 
 
 Scale, six inches to a mile. 
 The Coal-fields and other mineral districts of the N, of 
 ^ Sngland are published on a scale of six inches to a mile, 
 at 4«. to 6s. each. MS. Coloured Copies of other six>inch 
 maps, not intended for publication, are deposited for refer- 
 ence in the Geological Surtey Office, 28, Jermyn Street, 
 Loudon. 
 
 Sheet. 
 
 15. Ireleth. 
 
 16. Tllverstone. 
 
 17. Oartmel. 
 22. Aldingham. 
 47. OUtheroe. 
 43. Colne. 
 49. ILaneshawBr. 
 66. Whalley. 
 
 66. Haggate. 
 
 67. Winewall. 
 61. Treston. 
 62..Balder8tone. 
 63. Accrington. 
 (U. Burnley. 
 66. Stiperden Moor, 
 39. Lagrland. 
 
 70. Blaokbiim. 
 
 71. Haslingden. 
 
 72. Cliviger, Bacup, 
 
 Iianoasblrii. 
 
 Sheet. 
 
 73. Todmorden. 
 
 77. Chorley. 
 
 78. Bolton-le-Koors, 
 70. Eniwistle, , 
 BO. Tottington. 
 81. Wardle. 
 81. Ormskirk. 
 89. Btsjidish. 
 86. Adlington, 
 87.'Bolton-le-Hoora. 
 
 88. Bury, Heywood. 
 
 89. Rochdale, &s. 
 92. Biokerstaffe. 
 9S. Wigan. ', 
 
 94. West Houghton, 
 
 95. Eadclitfe. 
 
 96. Middleton, 
 Frestwich, 
 
 Sheet. 
 
 97. Oldham. 
 lOi). Knowsley. 
 
 101. Billinge. 
 
 102. Leigh, Lowtoii. 
 
 103. Ashley, Bccles. 
 
 104. Manchester, 
 Salford. 
 
 105. Ashton - uuder- 
 Lyne. 
 
 ,106. Liverpool, 
 
 107. Prescott, 
 
 108. St. Helen's. 
 
 109. Winwiok. 
 
 111. Cheedale. 
 
 112. 8tookport. 
 lis. I>art of Liver" 
 
 pool. 
 
 1. Evton. 
 
 2. Gateshead, 
 8. Harrow. 
 
 4. 8. Shields. 
 6. Greenside. 
 
 Dnrtaam. 
 
 6. Winlaton. 
 
 7. Washington. 
 
 8. Sunderland. 
 
 10. Edihondbyers. 
 
 11. Ebchester. 
 
 12. Tantoby. 
 
 15. Ctiester-le-St, 
 
 16. Hunstanworth. 
 
 17. Waskerlby. 
 
 BnrtaaiB— enntmuet/. 
 Sheet. Sheet. Sheet. 
 
 18. Muggleswink. 26. Wolaiugbam. 38. Maize Beck. 
 
 19. Lanchester. 26. Brancepeth. 41. Cockfield. 
 
 20. Hetton-le-Hol«. SO. Benny Seat. 42. Bp. Auckland. 
 
 22. Weai' HeM. S2. White Kirkley. 46. HawkalayHiUHo. 
 
 23. Eastgate. SS. Hamsterley. 62. Barnard Castle. 
 £4. titanhopq. 34. Whitwot'th. 63. Winston. 
 
 nroi^Uumlierlaiid. 
 
 44. Rothbnry. 80. Cramlington. 98. Walker. 
 
 45. Longframling- 81. Earsdon. 101. Whitfield. 
 
 ton. 82. NE.of Gilsland.102. All^ndols 
 
 46. Broomhill. 83. Coadlely Gate. Town. 
 
 47. Coquet Island. 87. Heddon. 103. Slaley. 
 
 5^. Longhorsley. 88. Long Benton. 105. Newkuds. 
 
 65. Ulgluun. 89. Tjrnemouth. 106. Blackpool Br. 
 
 56. Bruridge Bay. 91. Greenhead. 107. Allendale. 
 
 63. Netherwitton. 92. Haltwhistle. 108. Blanchland. 
 
 64. Morpeth. 93. HaydonBridge.109. Shotleyfield, 
 
 65. Newbiggin. 94. Hexham. 110. Wellhope. 
 
 72. Bedlingiou. 95. Corbridge. lll.'Allenheads. 
 
 73. Blyth. 96. Horsley. 112. 
 
 97. Newcastle. 
 
 55. Searness. . 
 
 56. Skiddaw. 
 
 63.. Thackthwaite. 
 61. Keswick. 
 
 2. Tees H^ad. 
 6. Duftou Fell. 
 
 7. Eedcar. 
 
 8. Saltbnm, 
 9. 
 
 12. Bowes. 
 
 :8. WycliBie. 
 
 17. Guisboro*. 
 
 20. Lythe. 
 
 24. Kirkby Ravens- 
 worth. 
 
 26. Aldborough. 
 
 32..Wb^by. 
 
 SS. —^ 
 
 S8. Marske. 
 
 39. Eichmond. 
 
 46. 
 
 47. ^bin Hood's 
 Bay. 
 
 53. Downtaolme.. 
 
 68. Leybourne. • 
 
 82. Kiostones. 
 
 84. £. Witton. 
 
 S7< Foxup. 
 
 98. Kirk Gill. 
 
 99. Haden Carr. 
 100. Lofthouse. 
 115. AmcUfCe. 
 
 Comberland. 
 
 65. Dockraye. 
 
 69. Buttermere 
 
 70. Grange. 
 
 71. Helvellyn. 
 
 \ire8tinorland. 
 
 12. Patterdale. 25. Grasmere. 
 
 18. Near Grasmere. 38. Kend'.u, 
 
 Torlcsbire. 
 
 ilO. Conistone 
 
 Moor. 
 138. Kirkby 
 
 Malham. 
 184. Dale End. 
 186. Kildwick. 
 2U0. Keighley. 
 
 201. Bingley. 
 
 202. Calverley. 
 
 203. Seacrofi. 
 
 204. Aberford. 
 216. Peeke Well. 
 
 216. Bradford. 
 
 217. Calverley. 
 
 218. Leeds. 
 
 219. Kippax. 
 £31. Halifax. 
 232. Birstal. 
 23S. EastArdsley. 
 234. Castleford. 
 246. Huddersfield. 
 847. Dewsbury. 
 
 248. Wakefield. 
 
 249. Ponteftnct. 
 260. Darrington. 
 
 74. Wastwater. 
 
 75. Stonethwaite 
 Fell. 
 
 260. Honley. 
 
 261. Kirkbnrton. 
 
 262. Darton. 
 
 263. Hemsworth. 
 
 264. Campsall. 
 
 272. Holmflrth. 
 
 273. Peuistone. 
 
 274. Barnsley. 
 
 275. Darfield. 
 
 276. Brodsworth. 
 
 281. Langsell. 
 
 282. Wortley. 
 28S. Wath upon 
 
 Deame. 
 284. Conisborougb 
 
 287. Low BradfoniL^i 
 
 288. Ecclesfield. ^ 
 288. Rotherhim. 
 290. Braithwell. 
 293. Hallam Moon 
 
 295. HandsWorth. 
 
 296. Laugbton-ao, 
 le-Morthen. 
 
 S99. 
 
 300. HarthilL 
 
 MINERAL STATISTICS. 
 
 . Bmbracirig the produce of Coals, Metallic Ores, and other Minerals. By E. Hrm. From 1863 to 1867 inclusive 
 If.Bd.eaoh. 1858, Port /..U. 6d,; J'oi-*//.,6». 1869,l«.6rf. 18eo,3». 6<J. 1861, 2».i and Appendix. 1». 1882 2« 6<* 
 1863,2».8d. 1864, 2s. 1865, 2». 6(il. 1868 to 1881. 2». each. ' ioos, m.oo 
 
 (These Statistics are now published. Iw tikSome Office, as parts of the Seporttofthe Inspeetors nf Mines.) 
 
 THE IRON OflES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Parti. The North and North Midland Counties of England (Outofprint). Part II. South StalTordshire Price 1» 
 Part III. South Wales. Price 1». id. Part IV. The Shropshire C5al-fleld and North StafforS°re7u,S<l. 
 
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