242 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



on looking at the cliff, we may notice how all the beds, as 

 they rise westward, gradually lose their clayey character, and 

 run into sand, which will account for this part of the cliff 

 foundering so fast. The water percolates through the sand 

 down to the Barton Beds, and the loose mass above is thus 

 launched into the sea. 



Below the Barton Coastguard Station rises another bed of 

 green clay, containing sharks' teeth and the bones of fish. 

 About a mile farther on, the High Cliff Beds emerge rich with 

 Cassis ambigua and Cassidaria nodosa. And below them, 

 seen in the channel of the stream flowing through Chewton 

 Bunny, rises a bed of bright metallic-looking, green clay, the 

 Nummulina Prestwichiana Bed of Mr. Fisher, containing sharks' 

 teeth and some few shells. Beyond, a little to the west of High 

 Cliff Castle, occurs the well-marked Pebble Bed, the commence- 

 ment of the Bracklesham Series, containing rolled chalk flints, 

 and casts of shells. Next follow grey sands full of fossil 

 wood and vegetable matter, marked by a course of oxydized 

 ironstone-septaria. Then succeeds another Pebble Bed, and 

 lastly appear the grey Bracklesham Sands.* 



We have thus gone through the principal beds, both of the 

 Freshwater and Marine Series, as far as they are exposed in this 

 section along the sea-coast. The fluvio-marine beds stretch away 

 eastward as far as Beaulieu and Hythe, but their clays here con- 

 tain very few shells. On the other hand, the Bracklesham Beds 

 trend away northward towards Stoney- Cross, appearing in the 

 valley, and cropping out again on the other side of the 

 Southampton Water. 



* For the High Cliff Beds, see Mr. Fisher's paper on the Bracklesham 

 Sands of the Isle of Wight Basin, in the Proceedings of the Geological 

 Society, May, 1862, pp. 86-91, whose divisions are here followed. 



