SHATTERED FLINTS. 203 



description of this remarkable phenomenon given 

 by Sir H. Englefield thirty years since.* The tabu- 

 lar and plated flint in the fissures is also shattered 

 in a similar manner. The nodules in the regular 

 layers are invariably in this state, in every locality 

 of the vertical and highly inclined chalk ; but the 

 separate nodules in the middle of the strata are 

 entire ; and in the horizontal beds, as for ex- 

 ample, on St. Catherine's, Boniface, and Shanklin 

 Downs, all the flints are unbroken. This shattered 

 condition of the flints has doubtless arisen, as 

 Sir Henry Englefield suggested, from the con- 

 cussion caused by the upheaval and disruption 

 of the once horizontal cretaceous deposits. The 

 disturbing force, though in many instances pro- 

 ducing flexures in the strata, was clearly exerted 

 violently and suddenly, and in such manner as to 

 shatter the flints without dislodging them from the 

 chalk. From the insulated nodules being generally 

 entire, it would seem that the greatest violence 



* Sir H. Englefield's "Isle of Wight," pp.20, 21. The following places are 

 enumerated as exhibiting this phenomenon very distinctly : — Alum Bay — Pit 

 south of Carisbrook Castle, and near Carisbrook town — Arreton-pit — Brading- 

 Down-pit — BradingShute — Culver Cliff. Shattered flints are occasionally met 

 with in some parts of the Sussex and Surrey chalk. My attention was first 

 directed to the subject in 1S20, by a paper of Sir H. Englefield in the 

 •' Linnean Transactions;" and a chalk-pit on the top of North-street, 

 Brighton, now filled up, and the area built over, presented a fine example, for 

 every flint, though retaining its form, was reduced to fragments. See the 

 " Fossils of the South Downs," p. 152. 



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