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8
" Valley Brick Earth." This extends from the
line of the river up to the railway and then
stretches down the Claremont Road to the
Kingston boundary. Fossils have been discovered
occasionally, but not in any quantity. In the
clay there have been found round stones or boulders
with iron stained crystals and the deposits of
crystalline gypsum.
Social Conditions.—The district is entirely a
residential one, and that of a first-class character;
it is situate on the banks of the River Thames,
but with a considerable portion of it on hill ground
at a height of from 100 to 120 feet above ordnance
datum and facing Banstead Downs and the
Surrey Hills, whence it derives the pure and
invigorating air that in so large a measure
accounts for its well known health conditions. A
very large proportion of the adult male residents
here are engaged in business in London, for access
to which the facilities offered by the Southwestern
Railway are not surpassed in the case of
any similar extra metropolitan district. The
tramways also provides a good service, more
especially for transit to Kingston and the townships
on the other side of the river, besides communications
with Richmond and Bushey Parks
and Hampton Court. There are no factories or
works employing many hands, with the exception
of the pumping stations of the Metropolitan
Water Board, formerly the Lambeth and Chelsea
Waterworks, and of the workers engaged at these