Iviii. 



SECOND SUMMER MEETING. 



MARINE GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION FROM SWANAGE TO 

 WEYMOUTH. 



An excursion was made in s.s. "Empress" on July gth from 

 Swanage to Weymouth, by the kind invitation of Mr. W. H. 

 Hudleston, a Vice-President of the Club and Past President of 

 the Geological Society of London. The party numbered about 

 a hundred and forty'. 



The following "Notes," by Mr. Hudleston, contain the 

 programme of the day and a guide to the geology of the coast. 

 These ' ' Notes " were originally supplied to Members of the 

 Club as part of the circular announcing the excursion, but it is 

 considered that they are worthy of a verbatim and permanent 

 record in the Proceedings. 



NOTES ON 



THE EXCURSION TO THE CLIFFS OF THE ISLE OF PURBECK 

 AND THEIR CONTINUATION TOWARDS WEYMOUTH. 



SOME PEEVIOTTS LITEEATUEE. 



Englejield and Webster. Ninety- one years have elapsed since the issue of this 

 classical work on the strata of the Isle of Wight and their continuation in the 

 adjacent parts of Dorset. It was then that a man who was at once a geologist 

 and an artist brought to the notice of his contemporaries the remarkable features 

 of this wonderful region, probably for the first time that such things had been 

 described. 



Webster's letters to his employer and fellow -author, narrating his discoveries 

 in the almost unknown regions of the west, read very much like the descriptions 

 of a traveller going over unexplored districts, which he depicts with mingled 

 astonishment and delight. First of all he describes the appearance of the cliffs at 

 Handf ast Point (The Foreland) as seen at a distance from the sea, and expresses 

 his surprise at the apposition of the vertical and horizontal beds, the latter being 

 pushed over the other in a curve. This appearance he held to be opposed to 

 every theory [then known] of the formation of strata. Webster proceeded to 

 land at " Swanwich," and took a boat for the closer examination of the cliffs. 

 He gives a description of the Chalk at the junction of the vertical and horizontal 

 beds, and notices the shattered condition of the flints, but did not observe anything 



