202 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



masses of the cretaceous system acquired their 

 present position and configuration. For these 

 fissures are invariably connected with the surface, 

 and are more or less filled with clay, sand, gravel, 

 and waterworn flints, from the alluvial debris that 

 forms the subsoil of the country. These appear- 

 ances may be observed in the chalk underlying 

 the bed of gravel and clay, on which the Albion 

 Hotel at Freshwater-gate is situated. 



Shattered flints. — Upon carefully extracting 

 a flint nodule from this cliff, it retains its original 

 form ; but upon examination it will be found 

 " shattered in every direction and broken into 

 pieces, varying in size from three inches in 

 diameter down to the minutest fragment, and 

 even into an impalpable powder. The flints thus 

 shivered, as if by a blow of inconceivable force, 

 retain their form and position in the bed. The 

 chalk closely invests them on every side, and till 

 removed, nothing different from other flints can 

 be perceived, excepting fine lines indicating the 

 fracture, as in broken glass ; but when moved, 

 'In \ fall at once to pieces. The fragments are as 

 sharp as possible, and quite irregular, being cer- 

 tainly not the effect of any peculiar crystallization 

 or internal arrangement of the material, but solely 

 attributable to external violence." Such is the 



