WIIITECLIFF BAY. 127 



precipitous than those in the north-west of the 

 Island, and their slopes are covered by debris, 

 and in many places with vegetation, down to the 

 shore. 



The eocene deposits of the Isle of Wight, ac- 

 cording to the investigations of Mr. Prestwich, 

 may be regarded as forming three principal 

 groups ; viz. the upper freshwater series, and the 

 marine series, which is divisible into the London 

 clay, and the Bognor deposits (see lign. 8).* 



The strata and organic remains. — If we 

 retrace our steps from Culver Cliff towards the 

 Foreland, we find that the lowermost tertiary 

 strata, those in actual contact with the chalk, 

 consist of mottled plastic clays, in which no ves- 

 tiges of animal remains have been observed. These 

 are followed by a brown sandy clay, with septaria, 

 &c, and a series of sands, sandstones and clays, 

 which abound in species of shells of certain ge- 

 nera, long known to prevail in the strata that 

 emerge along the western coast of Sussex, and 



* The Bognor fossils were first mentioned by Mr. Webster ; a more 

 extended notice was published in my " Fossils of the South Downs," and 

 "Geology of the South-East of England." "The rocks at Bognor are 

 evidently the ruins of a deposit once very extensive, and which, even within 

 the memory of man, formed a line of low cliffs along the coast; at present a 

 few groups of detached rocks, covered by the sea at high water, alone 

 remain, and the period is not far distant when these will be swept away by 

 the action of the waves. These beds are decidedly analogous to the calcaire 

 grossier of Paris." — Geol. S. E. of England, p. 51. 



