STUDLAND. 397 



fossils are very rare in this chalk ; here and there a Belemnite 

 and a Terebratula signify their existence, but although the 

 flints abound in large nodules, there are scarcely any shells. 



The continuation of the chalk from this point is no longer 

 traceable, save by the plants that occur along the shore and 

 the recess at the junction of the two lines of cliff; but between 

 the shore and the hill of Ballard Down, the conformation of 

 the ground shows that the chalk extends under a thin super- 

 ficial covering, from behind Studland to the edge of the as- 

 cent on the road to Swanage, where the steepness of the slope 

 and the sudden and abrupt stages of ascent, and the broken 

 character of the fragments of chalk and flint, the latter of 

 which cover the summit, sufficiently point out the spot where 

 the vertical chalk is to be found, though the surface is clothed 

 with a thin vegetation of grass and furze bushes, affording a 

 scanty herbage for sheep, and a bed for myriads of Helices. 



Mr. Lyell (' On the Strata between Christchurch and Stud- 

 land,' G. T. ii. s. s. p. 287) says that " the junction of the 

 chalk and sands is buried under a mass of debris ; but frag- 

 ments of a breccia of flint, imbedded in a ferruginous cement, 

 are observed immediately above the chalk." He also addu- 

 ces Dr. Mantell as pointing out a similar breccia, containing 

 green pebbles, at Seaforth ; and also quotes them as occur- 

 ring in the North of Hampshire and at Croydon. 



Now this breccia or conglomerate consists of sandy loam 

 and brown clay, with yellow clay, and greenish clay and sand, 

 containing, not only flints from the chalk, but the pebbles 

 themselves ; and, as it appears to me, has resulted from the 

 breaking up of the regularly-deposited lowest plastic clay bed, 

 and the mixture of flints with it, from a portion of the cliffs 

 higher than those in which the conglomerate occurs. That 

 lowest bed is, I conceive, the pebble bed itself, which, in va- 

 rious parts of this county, as at Lulworth, Hinton Martell, 

 and Booker's Hill, near Lytchett, occurs in great force im- 

 mediately over the chalk. It "may also be seen, not only at 

 Croydon, but in a vast accumulation at Otterton Hill near 

 Winchester, at Lewisham in Kent, and at Farnborough, where 

 it lies upon the chalk ; as it may be also seen at the chalk- 

 pit near Shelley Church, and at Bramford, in the county of 

 Suffolk. In all these localities I have noticed the occurrence 

 of pebbles directly, or very nearly so, over the chalk, some- 

 times imbedded in green, and sometimes in other coloured 

 sands and marls. These pebbles are also frequent in the sur- 

 face drift of Dorsetshire, pointing out the former greater ex- 

 tent of their occurrence ; and, singular enough, at the descent 

 to the village of Etterbeek from the city of Brussells, and also 



