318 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [May 13, 
The freshwater strata of Whitecliff Bay proved to be wholly mis- 
interpreted. Instead of their being constituted out of the Headon 
Hill strata only, more than a hundred feet thickness of them are 
additional beds characterized by peculiar fossils, and resting upon a 
marine stratum that overlies the Bembridge limestome, the equiva- 
lent of which at Headon is a soft concretionary calcareous marl, 
scarcely visible except in holes among the grass immediately under 
the gravel on the summit of the hill. 
The beds of the true Headon series, in fact, are all included in the 
sub-vertical portion of the Whitecliff sections and are there present 
in their full thickness. They are succeeded by peculiar strata of 
intermediate character, for which the name of St. Helen’s beds is 
proposed, and which become so important near Ryde that they con- 
stitute a valuable building stone. The Bembridge limestone that 
lies above is the same with the Binstead limestone near Ryde, out 
of which were procured the remains of quadrupeds of the genera 
Anoplotherium, Paleotherium, &c. identical with those found in the 
Gypsiferous beds of Montmartre. The Sconce limestone near Yar- 
mouth is also the same, and none of these limestones are identical 
with any of those conspicuous among the fluvio-marine strata at 
Headon Hill, and with which they have hitherto been confounded. 
They are far above them, and are distinguished by distinct and pecu- 
liar fossils. 
Almost all the country north of the chalk ridge, exclusive of the 
small strip occupied by the marine Eocenes, is composed of marls 
higher in the series than any of the Headon Hill beds, and hitherto 
wholly undistinguished, except in the Whitecliff section, where the 
age and relative position had been entirely mistaken. These are the 
Bembridge marls of Professor Forbes. Above them are still higher 
beds preserved only in two localities, viz. at Hempstead Hill, to the 
west of Yarmouth, and in the high groundat Parkhurst. For these 
the name of Hempstead series is proposed. Their characteristic 
fossils are very distinct, and the highest bed of the series is 
marine. These beds prove to be identical with the Limburg or 
Tongrien beds of Belgium and with the Gres de Fontainebleau 
series in France. We thus get a definite horizon for comparison 
with the continent, and are enabled to shew, that instead of our 
English series of Eocene tertiaries being incomplete in its upper 
stages as compared with those of France and Belgium, it is really 
the most complete section in Europe, probably in the world. We 
are enabled by it to correct the nomenclature used on the Continent, 
and to prove that the so called Lower Miocene formations of France 
and Germany are in true sequence with the Eocene strata, and are 
linked with them both stratagraphically and by their organic contents. 
We are also enabled to refer, with great probability, the so called 
Miocene tertiaries of the Mediterranean basin, of Spain and Por- 
tugal,— those of the well-known Maltese type—to their true posi- 
tion in the series, and to place them on a horizon with the Tongrien 
