136 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



bold promontory of Culver, which forms a striking 

 object from this part of the bay. In the shingle 

 may be found rolled blocks and pebbles of the 

 wealden shelly limestones ; and of jasper and 

 quartz, with rolled silicified zoophytes that have 

 been washed out of the chalk. 



In the wealden, bones of large reptiles, and 

 fruits of coniferous plants, have from time to 

 time been discovered; and many colossal bones 

 of the Iguanodon have been obtained from 

 the shingle. Slabs of the paludina-limestone 

 (see PL VI. fig. 3), commonly called Sussex 

 marble, and of indurated shale full of fresh- 

 water bivalves {PL VI. fig. 4), may generally be 

 seen protruding from the clay.* Masses of lig- 

 nite that have fallen out of the cliffs are often 

 found on the beach, and sometimes pebbles of 

 silicified wood. A few hundred yards before we 

 reach the chalk strata, laminated clay and shale 

 appear in the face of the cliff, and the surfaces 

 of most of the lamina? are studded with myriads 

 of the cases of minute freshwater crustaceans, 

 termed cyprides (see lign. 25), belonging to two or 

 three species which are peculiar to the wealden 

 de])osits. 



* In a late visit to this spot (August 1846) a layer of Sussex marble having 

 a band of fibrous calc-spar an inch thick, above and below, was exposed in 

 the clay near the base of the cliff. 



