1G6 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



of half a mile, the cliff is named Beacon Cliff. The 

 next two miles and a quarter is Barton Cliff, 

 which is terminated by a stream at Ckerton Bunny ; 

 and the remainder of the line to near Muddiford, 

 is High Cliff.* The alluvial gravel which forms 

 the subsoil of so large a portion of this coast, 

 appears at the top of the cliffs in a bed varying 

 from twenty to fifty feet in thickness. -j: 



Strata of Hordwell Cliff. — The eocene 

 strata in the coast sections have in no instance a 

 vertical, or even highly inclined position, but 

 gently dip to the east. The Headon Hill series 

 first appears, and constitutes the Hordwell Cliff; 

 and the London clays and sands which rise to the 

 surface at Barton Cliff, form the remaining portion 

 of this line of coast. The strata of Hordwell Cliff 

 consist of alternating beds of marl, sand, and clay, 

 often of a greenish colour, with thin bands of 

 indurated shell-marl full of the usual freshwater 

 species. Mr. Searlcs Wood mentions that a thin 

 seam of sandy clay, abounding in marine shells, is 

 intercalated with these lacustrine strata a few paces 



' These localities are accurately described by Mr. Webster, in his second 

 " Memoir," and are here introduced that the visitor may have no difficulty 

 in finding the places hereafter mentioned as yielding certain species of 

 organic remains. 



t The stratification of the coast, from the west of Christchurch to the chalk 

 at Studland Bay, in Dorsetshire, a distance of seventeen miles, is di 

 by Mr. Lyell, in Geol. Trans, vol. ii. p. 27:>. 



