244 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



and must here content myself to give a general description of 

 the Shepherd's Gutter and Brook Beds. The former, the 

 equivalent to the Nummulina Bed at Stubbington, Bracklesham, 



Shells from the Shepherd's Gutter Beds. 



and White-Cliff Bay, is so called from a small stream at the 

 foot of Bramble Hill Wood, about a mile due north of the 

 King's Gairn Brook. The measurements are as follows : 

 (1) Gravel from one to five feet ; (2) light-coloured clay, with 



following interesting measurements: (1) Beds of marl, containing Valuta 

 geminata, discovered forty years ago, at Outwalk Hill, by Sir Charles Lyell, 

 and now re-discovered, and a small MargineUa, seven feet. (2) Bed of 

 bluish sandy clay, which becomes, when weathered, excessively brown. 

 This bed, very rich in fossils, which are in a good state of preservation, is 

 equivalent to what is now called the Middle Marine Bed, at Hordle and 

 Brockenhurst, sixteen to nineteen feet. (3) Hordle Freshwater Beds, con- 

 taining two species of Potanomya, and comminuted shells, fifteen feet. (4) 

 Upper Bagshot Sands, measuring, as far as the workmen have gone, twenty 

 feet, and below which lies the water at the top of the clay. The important 

 point to be noticed is the extreme thinning out of the Hordle Freshwater 

 Beds, which, from the depth of two hundred and fifty feet at Barton, have 

 here shrunk to fifteen. Mr. Prestwich has suggested that these beds, as 

 they advance in a north-easterly direction, become more marine, which seems 

 here to be confirmed. 



