View source for Excursion to Guildford and the new railway works in progress there. Saturday, April 26th, 1884 - Geologists' Association excursion

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[[File:GA_Image_0474.jpg|thumb|Figure 40 Section through Godalming from north to south.]]
[[File:GA_Image_0475.jpg|thumb|Figure  41 Section from Midhurst to Watford.]]
[[File:GA_Image_0476.jpg|thumb|Figure  42 Vertical section of the Lower Greensand at Godalming. Scale-80 feet to 1 inch.]]

Director: Lieut.-Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S. (Report by The Director.) (Proc. Vol. viii. p. 390.)

'''Note:''' [Guildford was first visited by the Association in 1869, during the cessation of issue of Proceedings. From a brief record of the event in the Geol. Mag. for 1869, p. 331, we learn that the chief object in view was "the examination of the several kinds of strata forming the hills and vales in the vicinity of Guildford, Mallard, and Chilworth." The leaders were the President (Prof. Morris), C. J. A. Meyer, and Prof. T. Rupert Jones. The report of the second excursion is given below.]

'''Note:''' [Second excursion was 1872 and the third in 1877.]

Starting from Chilworth Station the Director first showed the members present the gravel-beds close by, which are about 200 feet above the sea. They then proceeded down the valley of the Tillingbourne, and were shown the gravel-beds at East Shalford, where they are about thirty feet above the present stream and below the top level of the Neocomian scarp that bounds the Tillingbourne on its right bank at this part of its course. The party then crossed the ridge of the Lower Greensand forming Chantry Down, descending into the next valley which lies on the outcrop of the Gault; and, noticing that formation and the Lower Chalk at the old Chalk pits, proceeded to Guildford by Pewley Hill.

The cutting at the London Road was next visited, where the Director pointed out the position of a series of high-level sands and gravels, composed almost entirely of material from the Lower Greensand, having its base sixty feet above the present level of the Wey, and resting on the Woolwich and Reading beds and London Clay, and, east of the railway bridge, on the Chalk. He explained that these deposits are a very much older series than those they had been shown on the Tillingbourne and at Pease-marsh.

The newer Drift-gravels, resting on these sands, were also shown, and the spot where a few land shells had been found was pointed out, attention being directed to the varied character of this Drift, and to its very angular, chalky character as it approaches the solid Chalk.

The party then walked through the cutting eastward, Col. Godwin-Austen showing the spot, at its deepest part, where the mammalian remains were found; and, passing again over the Eocenes, and seeing the shell-bed between the London Clay and the Woolwich and Reading Series, got into the train of trucks placed at their disposal by Mr. Wills, engineer of the works, and were taken to East Horsley, as far as it was then possible to proceed. There they were able to see the deep cuttings in the London Clay excavated by means of a "steam-navvy." The greater number then, leaving the train, walked over the Downs by Pebble Farm and Farley Heath to Gomshall Station, for their return journey to town.

==References==

===Maps===

Ordnance Survey. Geological, Sheet 8. 8s. 6d. New Ordnance Survey. Sheet 285. is.

===Books===
J. Prestwich, On the Lower Tertiary Strata. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vi. p. 252. 1850.

R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, Land Surfaces beneath the Drift-Gravel, ibid., vol. xi. p. 112. 1855.

C. J. A. Meyer, The Lower Greensand of Godalming. Geol. Assoc. (1868); Geologist, vol. vi. p. 52, vol. vii. p. 5; and Geol. Mag., vol. i. p. 249.

H. H. Godwin-Austen and W. Whitaker, On the New Railway Cutting at Guildford; the Pleistocene Sands and Drift Gravels observed there; with Notes by W. Whitaker. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xl. pp. 599613. 1884.

W. Topley, Geology of the Weald, 8vo, London (Geol. Surv.) 1875. 28s. [For literature.]

H. B. Woodward, The Geology of England and Wales, 8vo, London, ed. 2, p. 368. 1887. (Bargate Stone.)

[[Category:Geologists' Association excursions]]