COAST OF THE UNDERCLIFF. 255 



In many places the fallen blocks of sandstone 

 are covered in relief with stems and bulbs of the 

 Siphonia Webster i (ante, p. 243), and contain nume- 

 rous shells. At Ventnor there are (or were) some 

 bold vertical sections of the firestone ; and an 

 enormous mass of rock overhangs the road east of 

 the Marine hotel. The calcareous sandstone here 

 abounds in shells and molluskite. The terrace 

 and sea-cliffs that form the southern boundary of 

 this rapidly increasing town, are entirely composed 

 of fallen masses of the upper groups of the creta- 

 ceous strata. In many instances huge fragments of 

 white chalk appear imbedded in the green sand of 

 the firestone ; and I observed (in 1844) a series of 

 chalk strata forty feet in thickness, surmounted 

 by many feet of marl and firestone, forming a low 

 headland on the sea-shore ; the entire mass having 

 been retroverted in its fall from the heights above. 

 The diagram in lign. 20, p. 256, will serve to 

 elucidate the above remarks. 



The vicinity of Ventnor is rich in the shells and 

 zoophytes of the cretaceous system. The follow- 

 ing localities have been pointed out to me by 

 Mr. Saxby :— 



The bank on the roadside at the Shute above Ventnor, 

 abounds in Chalk-marl fossils. 



Horse-shoe Bay, in black malm rock ; many shell;-;. Under 

 the cliiT to the cast, called Highrport, at low water, nodules 



