This bed of red clay lies on a very irregular surface, and often descends into deep round wells, the origin of which has been explained by Lyell.

In these cavities are patches of sand like sea-sand, and like the sand which alternates with the great beds of small pebbles derived from the wear-and-tear of chalk-flints, which form Keston, Hayes and Addington Commons.

Near Down a rounded chalk-flint is a rarity, though some few do occur; and I have not yet seen a stone of distant origin, which makes a difference--at least to geological eyes--in the very aspect of the country, compared with all the northern counties.
The chalk-flints decay externally, which, according to Berzelius ("Edin.
New Phil.

Journal," late number), is owing to the flints containing a small proportion of alkali; but, besides this external decay, the whole body is affected by exposure of a few years, so that they will not break with clean faces for building.
This bed of red clay, which renders the country very slippery in the winter months from October to April, does not cover the sides of the valleys; these, when ploughed, show the white chalk, which tint shades away lower in the valley, as insensibly as a colour laid on by a painter's brush.
Nearly all the land is ploughed, and is often left fallow, which gives the country a naked red look, or not unfrequently white, from a covering of chalk laid on by the farmers.

Nobody seems at all aware on what principle fresh chalk laid on land abounding with lime does it any good.
This, however, is said to have been the practice of the country ever since the period of the Romans, and at present the many white pits on the hill sides, which so frequently afford a picturesque contrast with the overhanging yew trees, are all quarried for this purpose.
The number of different kinds of bushes in the hedgerows, entwined by traveller's joy and the bryonies, is conspicuous compared with the hedges of the northern counties.
March 25th [1844 ?] .-- The first period of vegetation, and the banks are clothed with pale-blue violets to an extent I have never seen equalled, and with primroses.