The Atherfield Clay is usually a sandy clay, fossiliferous. The basal
portion, 5-6 ft., is known as the "Perna bed" from the abundance of
_Perna Mulleti_; other fossils are _Hoplites Deshayesii_, _Exogyra
sinuata_, _Ancyloceras Mathesonianum_. The Hythe beds are
interstratified thin limestones and sandstones; the former are
bluish-grey in colour, compact and hard, with a certain amount of quartz
and glauconite. The limestone is known locally as "rag"; the Kentish Rag
has been largely employed as a building stone and roadstone; it
frequently contains layers of chert (known as Sevenoaks stone near that
town). The sandy portions are very variable; the stone is often clayey
and calcareous and rarely hard enough to make a good building stone;
locally it is called "hassock" (or Calkstone). The two stones are well
exposed in the Iguanodon Quarry near Maidstone (so called from the
discovery of the bones of that reptile). Southwest of Dorking sandstone
and grit become more prevalent, and it is known there as "Bargate
stone," much used around Godalming. Pulborough stone is another local
sandstone of the Hythe beds. Fuller's earth occurs in parts of this
formation in Surrey. The Sandgate beds, mainly dark, argillaceous sand
and clay, are well developed in east Kent, and about Midhurst,
Pulborough and Petworth. At Nutfield the celebrated fuller's earth
deposits occur on this horizon; it is also found near Maidstone, at
Bletchingley and Red Hill. The Folkestone beds are light-coloured,
rather coarse sands, enclosing layers of siliceous limestone (Folkestone
stone) and chert; a phosphatic bed is found near the top. These beds are
well seen in the cliffs at Folkestone and near Reigate. At Ightham there
is a fine, hard, white sandstone along with a green, quartzitic variety
(Ightham stone). In Sussex the limestone and chert are usually lacking,
but a ferruginous grit, "carstone," occurs in lenticular masses and
layers, which is used for road metal at Pulborough, Fittleworth, &c.
The Lower Greensand usually forms picturesque, healthy country, as about
Leith Hill, Hindhead, Midhurst, Petworth, at Woburn, or at Shanklin and
Sandown in the Isle of Wight. Outside the southern area the Lower
Greensand is represented by the Faringdon sponge-bearing beds in
Berkshire, the Sandy and Potton beds in Bedfordshire, the Shotover iron
sands of Oxfordshire, the sands and fuller's earth of Woburn, the
Leighton Buzzard sands, the brick clays of Snettisham, and perhaps the
Sandringham sands of Norfolk, and the carstone of that county and
Lincolnshire. The upper ironstone, limestone and clay of the
Lincolnshire Tealby beds appear to belong to this horizon along with the
upper part of the Speeton beds of Yorkshire. The sands of the Lower
Greensand are largely employed for the manufacture of glass, for which
purpose they are dug at Aylesford, Godstone, near Reigate, Hartshill,
near Aylesbury and other places; the ferruginous sand is worked as an
iron ore at Seend.
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