ST. ^LDHELM'S HEAD. Ixxvii. 



served by two Royal chaplains, who received their stipends direct from the 

 Crown, the High Sheriff being the paymaster. The entrance door, of two orders 

 and a hood mould, and also the one small deeply -splayed window, were 

 interesting and beautiful features. There was a superstition that, if one stuck a 

 pin in the central pillar and wished a wish, that wish would be fulfilled. 



THE GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT. 



Leaving the chapel, the Club assembled at a convenient spot 

 on the edge of the beetling cliff, from which a fine panoramic 

 view of the coastline could be obtained, reaching away to 

 Portland Bill " serried ranks of cliffs and headlands," as Mr. 

 C. G. Harper says, " notched and crannied with bays and coves." 



Dr. W. T. ORD, the well-known Bournemouth geologist, here 

 gave a short address on the geology of the district traversed by 

 the Club that day. His remarks were elucidated and enforced 

 by the exhibition of a large coloured sectional map. 



He began by recalling the fact that 17 years ago on September 7th, 1892 the 

 Dorset Field Club last held a meeting in that district, and that on that occasion 

 their late lamented President, Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell, who gave an account 

 of the geology of the district, was accompanied by the late Mr. W. H. 

 Hudleston, then President of the Geological Society. It was with some diffidence 

 that he followed two such geological giants, and he could not begin without 

 honourable mention of the names of these great men now gone to their rest. 

 When in the train going from Wareham to Corfe they were passing over the 

 Lower Bagshot Beds of the Eocene Age, the beds which formed the great part of 

 all the heath land of Dorsetshire and the greater part of Bournemouth Bay. 

 Wherever they saw this peculiar vegetation of heather, gorse, pine trees, and 

 rhododendrons, which they got in this part of the country, and also in the north 

 of Hampshire and at Woking, they knew that they were on the Bagshot Beds. 

 The reason for this peculiar vegetation was that the beds were free from lime. 

 As they approached Corfe Castle they passed over an ai - ea of London Clay and a 

 short section of the Woolwich and Reading Beds. When they got to Corfe 

 Castle and looked out of the train they saw a total change in the appearance of 

 the district. Hills with rounded tops and covered with turf showed them that 

 they were on the chalk, and they saw the chalk here and there, discoloured 

 by weathering. Corfe Castle was built on the top of a portion of an anticlinal 

 of chalk, the strata of which were tilted nearly up on end. When the Club 

 began their drive, almost before they left the town of Corfe, they passed 

 over a small section of the Lower and Upper Greeiisaiid and Gault, tilted 

 up on eud in the same extraordinary way. Xext they came to the Wealden 



