70 REPORT—1848. 
Wilts and Weymouth railway at Holywell. (The author mentioned the fossils ob- 
tained from these localities*.) The strata at Chute Farm consist of chloritic marl, 
but the fossils are more numerous and varied. 
The general position of the chloritic marl in the Isle of Wight is as follows :— 
From Compton Bay along the south slope (adjoining the chalk marl) of Shalcomb, 
Mottestone, Brixton and Lammerstone Downs; near the farms of Compton, Coomb, 
Rancomb, Northcourt, Shorwell, Chillerton; between Chale Farm and Chillerton 
Down; largely developed near Gatcomb; between New-barn and Gausons on the 
Bridle road and hill between Gausons and Carisbrook; a great thickness on the road 
from Mount Joy to Whitcomb, near the farms of West Standen, Sullons and Arre- 
ton; the south slope of Arreton, Messley, Ashey, Brading, and Bembridge Downs; 
near the farms of Messley, Grove, Upper Martin and Yaverland; running into the sea 
near the Culver Cliff. The chloritic marl is also found on Shanklin, St. Boniface, Kew, 
Week, Appuldercoomb, St. Catherine’s, and Niton Downs; at the top of the Undercliff, 
Ventnor Shute near Steep-hill Castle; in large blocks on the sea-shore, and also near 
the farms of Shanklin, Luccomb, Wroxhall, Winson, Span, Kew, Week, Dean, Little 
Stenbury, Sheep Wash, Niton and Chale, always immediately under the chalk marl, 
and separating it from the upper greensand. ‘This chloritic marl or phosphate bed 
may be applied with great profit on the adjacent arid ferruginous sandy soil so common 
and unproductive in the centre of the south side of the island, viz. at Brixton, Chale, 
Kingston, Godshill, Newchurch, Bleak Down, Rookley, Queen’s Bower, Sandy-way, &c. 
The drift or gravel] beds of the island on the north side are composed of angular flints 
very little waterworn, and in some places perfectly sharp, and.they are interstratified 
with a fine brown sand and marly brick earth. The sand and clays in which they are 
imbedded are the same; it has every appearance of being similar to the flint gravel 
in the neighbourhood of London, &c. The north side of St. George's Down is thickly 
covered with this gravel, but at the south end, beyond the greensand and gault, there 
is a thick bed of very hard flint and chert conglomerate. Strongly cemented with 
iron, it is stratified in places with zones of the broken ferruginous bands of the upper 
beds of the lower green sandstone, on which strata it is reposing; and the sands and 
clays in which they are imbedded are debris derived from the lower greensand. The 
whole of the drifts in the centre of the south side are the same but do not form con- 
glomerates, but merely ferruginous flinty gravels stratified with ferruginous sands. 
It appears from the above that the drift beds on the north side are the detritus 
derived from the flints of the chalk and sands and clays of the tertiary series, and do 
not appear to have been accumulated on a sea-beach, in consequence of the angular 
form presenting little evidence of their having been subjected to much attrition. 
On the south side of the chalk range the drift has resulted from an admixture of 
chert and flints, probably from the upper greensand with the debris of the sands of 
the lower greensand, and appears to be local. The tops of the highest hills are not 
covered by this drift; on them we find only the angular or unrolled flints without any 
intermixture of sand or clay. 
The author does not regard a vertical upward movement as the cause of the singular 
position of the chalk and tertiary beds, but ‘conceives that slides occasioned by the de- 
composition of the fuller’s-earth and the abrasion of soft sandstone by currents of water 
may have produced these effects. 
Since writing the above paper, the author has found that Mr. Nesbit has analysed 
some of the strata, and found that a nodule in the lower chalk at St. Catherine’s Down 
contained 19-00 per cent. phosphoric acid and 39-00 per cent. phosphate of lime, and 
that the upper greensand contains, on an average of twenty different specimens, 16 per 
cent.‘phosphoric acid and 25 per cent. of phosphate of lime. 
Account of an extensive Mud-slide in the Island of Malta. 
By A. Mitwarp. 
The writer gives this account with the view of elucidating the motion of viscous 
* Note by Professor E. Forbes.—Hitherto no species of Nera, so far as I am aware, has 
been found in cretaceous strata. Capt. Ibbetson discovered a species of Nezra in the oolitic 
rocks, and several are known in the tertiary and recent formations. ‘This cretaceous form 
supplies the deficient link in the series of Neera in time, 
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