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GEOLOGY OF THE SOUTH EAST OF DORSETSHIRE. 



North side of the Red Rock. 

 1, Tubes in fallen masses. 2, Tubes in grooves in the rock. 



thence, appear, that they were produced by the action of wa- 

 ter, probably rain water, which had filtered down and through 

 the sand when softer, and coated the surface of its channel 

 with minute particles of iron washed out of the sand. I am 

 not altogether theorising here, for on examining, last winter, 

 a cutting made through Booker's Hill, near Lytchett, (where 

 the strata are plastic clay sands), I found that the rain had 

 dripped down the surface of the banks of the new road, and 

 had entangled in its descent particles of sand, in such a way 

 as to have formed tubes exactly similar to those at Studland, 

 through which (of course, near the surface of the section) the 

 water had run away without spreading. I cannot but con- 

 jecture, therefore, that such was the origin of the tubes at 

 Studland, though their date must have been long prior to the 

 present order of things, yet, clearly, since the rock had as- 

 sumed its present inclined position. If this explanation be 

 held insufficient, we must then have recourse to electrical 

 agency, and it might be easy to find traces of minute veins 

 which seem to have traversed the rock, and which would jus- 

 tify the belief of some electrical or magnetic influence subse- 

 quent to, or contemporaneous with, the mechanical changes 

 that have affected it. Only, in this case, however similar the 

 tubes may be to the fulgorites which are formed by lightning 

 in the sands of Prussia, the vertical direction of the tubes 

 would not accord with that of the supposed electric veins and 

 threads, and it seems scarcely probable that such a develop- 

 ment of electrical agency should have taken place, either 

 here or at Shanklin. On the whole, therefore, I am inclined 

 to believe, that these cylindrical tubes are merely rain-chan- 



