The Middle-Eocene at Hordle and Barton. 



things at present found. Still, in one way, it is most inte- 

 resting, as completely disproving the Chroniclers' accounts that, 

 before its afforestation by the Conqueror, the district of the Forest 

 was so fertile. The fact is a sheer impossibility. No wheat 

 could ever be grown on this great bed of chalk-gravel, which is 

 varied only by patches of sand. 



But nowhere, perhaps, in the world can we see the strati- 

 fication of the upper portion of the Middle-Eocene better 

 than at Hordle and Barton, as the sea serves to keep the 

 different strata exposed. The beds dip easterly with a fall 

 of about one in a hundred, though, at the extreme west, at 

 High Cliff, it is much less, and here and there in some few 

 places they lie almost horizontally.* At Hordle they seem 

 to have been deposited in a river of a very uniform depth. 

 There is but one single fault in the whole series, just under 

 Mead End, where all the beds have alike suffered. Here and 

 there, however, they are deposited with an undulating line ; 

 and here and there, too, a rippled surface occurs, caused by the 

 action of small waves. The river appears to have varied very 

 much in the amount and force of its stream, as some of the beds, 

 where the shells are less frequent, have been deposited very 

 rapidly, whilst others, where the organic remains are more 

 abundant, have been laid on very slowly and in very still water, f 



It will be impossible to examine all the beds. One or two, 

 however, may be mentioned. And since the beds rise at the 

 east we will begin from Milford. First of all, at Mineway, there 



* In the coast-map at p. 148, the principal beds are marked, so that, 1 

 trust, there will be no difficulty in finding them. 



f For the direction of the river from east to west, see a paper " On the 

 Discovery of an Alligator and several Xew Mammalia in Hordwell Cliff," 

 by Searles Wood, F.G.S. : London Geological Journal, No. 1., pp. 6, 7. 



237 



