CHRISTCHURC1I BAY. 165 



weather, a boat offers the most convenient trans- 

 port. Hurst Castle, which guards the narrow 

 part of the Solent Strait, here not a mile across, 

 is built on the extremity of a bar of shingle, that 

 extends nearly two miles from the mainland, on 

 the eastern part of Christchurch Bay. This bank 

 consists of waterworn chalk-flints, and gravel, de- 

 rived from the alluvial drift, which is so largely 

 distributed over the coast district. " It is re- 

 markable," as Sir Henry Englefield observes, 

 " for its uncommon solidity ; for it is merely 

 a submarine cliff of shingle, 200 feet high, the 

 depth of the channel close to the castle being 

 33 fathoms ; and the tide flows through it with 

 a rapidity which, at certain times, no boat can 

 stem; yet this natural breakwater has remained 

 unmoved for centuries." * 



At the junction of the bar of Hurst Castle with 

 the mainland, a low bank of gravel extends for 

 about a quarter of a mile, and is succeeded by 

 tertiary sands and clays, which gradually rise into 

 cliffs 200 feet high ; the first mile and a half being 

 Hordwell Cliff, properly so called, which reaches 

 to Long-mead End. From this spot to a ravine 

 formed by a stream at Beacon Bunny, a distance 



* See Sir H. Englefield's " Isle of Wight," p. 14, for many interesting 

 remarks on the bed of the Solent. 



