Strata let ween Durhtone Head and Old Harry. 181 



number;" — there are more than double that number ; (farther 

 on he himself speaks of forty -nine horizontal layers). I tried 

 to count them, but failed in reckoning all, as some of them 

 are double, and subject to change in their order. I mention 

 one fact which has escaped Dr. Mitchell, and all other ob- 

 servers. About the thirty-fifth "bending" line of flint, the 

 curve, instead of being continuous, is snapped asunder, and 

 the line re-commences a little below the former part, the lines 

 to the top of the cliff pursuing the same course. It is, in 

 fact, a fault, at that place, as if the upper beds had given way 

 in the straining of the mass, and the northern portions had 

 slipped away to the north ; an analogous example of that 

 phenomenon presented by the whole cliff on a larger scale. 

 And in closely observing, there appear certain cracks, which 

 traverse the upper parts of the curved beds, in a direction 

 transverse to the line of the great fault below, and which 

 agree with the joints before alluded to, as affecting the whole 

 cliff, {fig. 37), and which are also found in the cliffs of Hast- 

 ings sand, in Swanwich Bay. 



There is another curious circumstance. A little distance 

 from the great fault, the vertical beds of flint are interrupted 

 by the insertion of a mass of broken flintless chalk, between 

 two vertical bedding-lines ; the flint seams being again con- 

 tinued to the south point of Ballard Head. Does this beto- 

 ken a still greater derangement than has been yet contempla- 

 ted ? Of this I am sure, the local phenomena are infinitely 

 more extraordinary than Dr. M. believes ; far more so than I 

 had an idea of before ; for though I had examined very closely 

 this end of the cliff, I had never so critically scrutinized it, 

 till Dr. M. set me the example ; my previous observations be- 

 ing directed to a general survey, for purposes distinctive from 

 an analysis of the beds and their contents. There appear to 

 have been extensive dislocations in the chalk, at a period 

 when the mass extended farther than at present, to the east. 

 These are betokened by the appearance of cracks parallel to the 

 great fault, all through the cliffs, and also by the circumstances 

 attending the insulated masses and projections that line the 

 coast. It is very clear to me, that not only Old Harry and his 

 wife, the square tabular rock mentioned by Dr. Mitchell, at p. 

 591, (3 infig. 13), and that far more lofty, pointed pillar, not far 

 from it, (4 in fig. 13), (the four I allude to at p. 418 above,^. 

 39, the latter not being named by Dr. M.), but also the projec- 

 tion just under the signal-staff, (fig. 36 and fig. 39) which bids 

 fair to become a separate pillar before many years, (fig. 14), 

 have originated from a pre-existing crack, which traversed 

 the whole ridge in a line parallel with the present cliff, the 



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