54 Notes on the Bournemouth Cliffs. [Sess. 
a very compact gravel, and partly of clay, and exhibit some 
good specimens of false bedding. The soil on the top is very 
thin, and the whole country for some miles inland appears to 
be very barren. 
The great feature of the neighbourhood is the extensive 
pine forests, which consist to a small extent of the Scotch fir 
(Pinus sylvestris), but to a much greater extent of a pine which 
bears a much larger cone. The town itself has extended very 
greatly during the last thirty years for which I have known 
it, and is still increasing very fast. A large number of new 
roads have lately been cut through the woods, with a view to 
building operations; and in many cases these have exposed 
sections, which enable the nature of the strata to be very 
easily seen. One effect of this laying out of new roads, 
which are cut principally through the gravel, has been to 
discolour the water of some artificial lakes, through which a 
small stream flows to the sea. 
As will be readily understood, the cliffs are very easily 
acted upon by running water. Whenever there is a heavy 
shower of rain, the water running down the cliffs cuts numer- 
ous small channels in them, which often unite and form larger 
ones; and every shower brings down, and deposits at the base 
of each channel, a delta of greater or less size. In many cases 
the deltas do not exhibit a uniform slope downwards, but are 
composed of a series of layers, each of which falls short of the 
preceding one, as is often the case when such a substance as 
melted lead is poured out into a pan. When the channels have 
reached a certain size, the portion of the cliff they have under- 
mined will fall down bodily; and there are places where such 
landslips are observed half-way down the cliff, with the trees 
still growing on them. 
As already mentioned, the Bourne has excavated for itself 
a valley of considerable size ; and wherever there is a stream, 
either temporary or permanent, it has excavated a small valley, 
generally with nearly perpendicular sides, some of which 
extend inland for a considerable distance, occasionally for 
nearly a mile. These valleys are called chines, and there are 
at least a dozen of them, of different sizes, in the four or five 
miles to which the cliffs extend. The same word, “ chine”, is 
used in the Isle of Wight to denote similar small valleys. 
