The road from London to Hastings enters the county at Front, near Tonbridge, and runs through Robertsbridge and Battle ; the road from London to Brighton enters the county in the pariah of Ifleld, and runs thence through Cuckfield ; the road from London to Ports mouth traverses a small portion of the western division of the county near Peterafield; and the road from Dover to I'ortsmouth, which runs parallel with the sea-shore, enters Sussex near Rye, and proceeds to Winchelsea, Hastings, Brighton, Arundel, and Chichester, quitting the county for Hampshire near Havant. There are also many branch and cross roads.
The London Brighton and South Coast railway enters the county at Three Bridges, and proceeds across it in a generally southward direction to Brighton (20i miles). The coast-line of this company runs at a little distance from the coast from the western extremity of the county almost to the eastern, from a few miles beyond Chichester on the west to Hastings on the east. From the Three Bridges station of the main line a short branch runs south-west to Horsham. From the Cuckfield station a branch runs south-east to Lewes, where it unites with tho coast line. A short distance east from Lewes a branch is carried south to Newhaven Harbour. Several miles farther east a branch runs off north to Hailsham, and another south to Eastbourne. The Hastings branch of the South-Eastern railway enters the county at Tonbridgo Wells, and runs south-east past Battle to Hastings. From Hastings a branch, connected with the Coast line of the Brighton and South Coast railway, runs north-east at a short distance from the coast to Rye, where it enters Kent.
Climate.—The climate of the southern part of the county, near the seacoast, is mild, and not subject to many variations of temperature. The mean temperature of the year is 5110° Fehr., or more than one degree above the mean temperature of London. Large towns have consequently sprung up, to which invalids and others repair for health and relaxation. Tho mean temperature of the three winter months at Hastings is 43*, whilst the mean temperature of winter in the adjoining southern counties is generally only 40.35*. The higher or northern part of the county, particularly the Forest Ridge, is of I considerably lower temperature. In the Weald the climate is cold and damp.
Geology.—The greater portion of the southern part of the county is occupied by the chalk formation, which constitutes its most striking geological feature. The general dip or inclination of this, as indeed of all the strata in the county, is to the south-east, with occasional exceptions. The face of the chalk is marked with fissures or wells, and scooped into deep hollows, furrows, and basins, which are moro or less filled with tertiary sand and gravel. In many places quarries have been opened and kilns erected for converting the chalk into lime for the use of the agriculturists, who annually consume largo quanti ties. The Sussex chalk varies in colour from pure white to a bluish gmy ;.the harder varieties were in great request among the Normans for building. The walls of several old cantles and religious houses were built with chalk faced with Caeu stone or flints. The chalk is regularly stratified. The upper division contains horizontal layers of siliceous nodules with intersecting vein, of tabular flint. Sulphuret
of iron is found in irregular masses and in octahedral crystals. Chalk marl constitutes the foundation of the chalk-hills; its outcrop con nects the detached parts of the range, and composes a fertile tract of arable land, on which are some of the best farms in the county. Below the marl is a bed of fire-stone, which is obscurely traced iu the eastern part of the county, but to the west forms a terrace of con siderable breadth. The gault, the lowest division of the chalk formation, generally constitutes a valley within the central edge of the chalk, and may be traced with little interruption from Eastbourne westward along the whole county into Hampshire, forming a stiff soil, but very rich.
Next to the chalk, the most important formation is the Wealden. It joins the gault, and extends through the centre of the county. It is a series of clays and sands with subordinate beds of limestone-grit and shale; it forms an anticlinal axis of considerable elevation, the direction of which is nearly from east to west. This district is an irregular triangle, the base extending from near Pevensey to Seabrook in Kent, and the apex being situated year Heating Comb in the western part of Sussex. The Wealden clay is a tenacious clay of various shades of blue and brown, containing subordinate beds of limestone and sand with layers of septaria of argillnceous ironstone. This formation is celebrated chiefly for the Iguanodons, Hylosaurians, and other gigantic reptiles which have been found within it. The Sussex marble occurs in layers in different parts of the district. It is a limestone of bluish-gray mottled with green and ochraceous yellow, and is composed of the remains of fresh-water univalves formed by a calcareous cement into a beautiful compact marble which bears a high polish. The central group of the Wealden is formed of alternating sands, sandstone, and shale, which have been denominated the Hastings beds. These beds form a line of irregular cliffs 30 or 40 miles in length, from 4 to 9 miles in width, and from 20 to upwards of 600 feet in height. Below this are the Tilgate beds, the lowest stratum of which contains large concretional or leuticular masses of a compact calciferous grit or sandstone in three or four layers, each varying in thickness from two to three inches, which was formerly extensively quarried and used for paving and roofing. These beds extend from the western extremity of the Hastings sands at Loxwood to Hastings, and are separated from the next subdivision by blue clay and shale. This subdivision, called the Worth Sands, consists of a series of arenaceous stmta,.some of which form a flue soft building stone extensively used. The last division of the Wealden is com posed of the Ashburnham beds, which occur beneath the Worth.stone; they are composed of alternations of sand, friable sandstone, shale, and clay : for the most part they are highly ferruginous, and inclose rich argillaceous iron-ore and large masses of lignite. It was in tho Wealden strata, when wood was abundant and charcoal was employed in smelting iron, that the chief iron-works of Sussex were situated, the ironeare being extracted from the ironstone of the argilla ceous beds.