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Updated: June 6, 2025
Besides the reasons before given for abandoning this nomenclature, it is objectionable in this instance as leading the uninitiated to suppose that the divisions thus named Upper and Lower Greensand are of co-ordinate value, instead of which the chloritic sand is quite a subordinate member of the Upper Cretaceous group, and the term Greensand has very commonly been used for the whole of the Lower Cretaceous rocks, which are almost comparable in importance to the entire Upper Cretaceous series.
Its principal productions are fruits and early vegetables, which are raised in extensive "market gardens," and shipped in large quantities to Northern cities. The fertilizing minerals gypsum, marl, and greensand abound, and their judicious use readily restores the lands when exhausted by improvident cultivation.
They are chert, which abound in the greensand formation; and insignificant as they look, are a great token of a most important fact; that the currents which formed our sands and gravels set from the south during a long series of ages, first till they had washed away all the chalk off the Weald, and next till they had washed away a great part of the sands, which then became exposed, the remains whereof form great commons over a wide tract of Surrey.
It cannot be ascribed to any local cause, for it takes place, not only over large areas in the Gulf of Mexico and the Coast of Florida, but in the South Atlantic and in the Pacific. For the present we must be content with the fact that, in certain areas of the "intermediate zone," greensand is replacing and representing the primitively calcareo- silicious ooze.
Again, the Nautilus d'Orbignyanus, as far as its imperfect state allows of comparison, resembles, as I am informed by Professor Forbes, both in its general form and in that of its chambers, two species from the Upper Greensand. It may be added that every one of the above-named genera from Quiriquina, which have an apparently tertiary character, are found in the Pondicherry strata.
Not long ago, palaeontologists maintained that the whole class of birds came suddenly into existence during the eocene period; but now we know, on the authority of Professor Owen, that a bird certainly lived during the deposition of the upper greensand; and still more recently, that strange bird, the Archeopteryx, with a long lizard-like tail, bearing a pair of feathers on each joint, and with its wings furnished with two free claws, has been discovered in the oolitic slates of Solenhofen.
Shankland or greensand, "a triple alternation of sands and sandstones with clay;" 2. Galt, "a stiff blue or black clay, abounding in shells, which frequently possess a pearly lustre;" 3. Hard chalk; 4. Chalk with flints; these two last being generally white, but in some districts red, and in others yellow.
That it is by them is shown by the stone used, which is greensand and not the Caen stone of later-Norman workmen, and by differences in working. The early-Norman architects had chiefly used tufa, and these successive changes of material are of great help in assigning their respective dates to various parts of the fabric.
There are sometimes different contiguous and parallel escarpments those, for example, of the greensand and chalk which are so near each other, and occasionally so similar in altitude, that we can not imagine any existing archipelago if converted into dry land to present a like outline.
Byworth is picturesque, as Miss Vigers sketch will show; but, apart from its situation, it calls for no other comment. The scenery around Petworth is characteristic of the Lower Greensand country and the picturesque wooded outcrop north-east of Byworth is perhaps as beautiful as any other part of this distinctive belt.
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