GEOLOGY OF ALUM BAY. 153 



and not a trace of vegetation appears in any part. 

 All is wild ruin ! The tints of the cliffs are so 

 bright and so varied, that they have not the aspect 

 of anything natural. Deep purplish red, dusky 

 blue, bright ochreous yellow, grey, nearly ap- 

 proaching to white, and absolute black, succeed 

 each other, as sharply defined as the stripes in 

 silk ; and after rains, the sun which, from about 

 noon till his setting in summer, illuminates them 

 more and more, gives a brilliancy to some of these 

 nearly as resplendent as the bright lights on real 

 silk. Small vessels often lie in this bay for the 

 purpose of loading chalk and sand, and they serve 

 admirably to show the majestic size of the cliffs 

 under whose shade they lie diminished almost to 

 nothing." * 



Geology of Alum Bay. — Although the uncon- 

 formable position and dislocated state of the strata 

 at Headon Hill, appear, at first sight, to present 

 but little correspondence with the nearly horizon- 

 tal freshwater deposits at Whitecliff Bay, and the 

 richly-coloured and variegated stripes of sands and 

 clays of the vertical cliffs of Alum Bay, still less 

 to resemble the dull ochreous marine beds ex- 

 posed in the breaks of the turf-covered slopes of 

 that locality — yet a careful examination will soon 



» Sir H. Englefield's " Isle of Wight," p. 81. 



