2;o 



NATURE 



J ail. I I , 



1S77 



for commercial purposes. Great interest attaches to 

 these somewhat monotonous-looking cliffs, as it is from 

 them that has been unearthed the marvellously rich 

 flora which I shall briefly describe further on. Let 

 us commence by visiting the diggings near Wareham. 

 We see that they are situated on a wild moorland 

 with hillocks, under the high range of chalk downs, in a 

 gap in which stand the massive ruins of Corfe Castle. 

 Very bleak and barren the scenery looks in high winds 

 and driving showers, and the latter are of unusually 

 common occurrence, the clouds being caught and held by 

 the high downs. The moorland stretches far to the sea 

 and enwraps Poole Harbour, continuing as far as the eye 

 can reach, beyond Bournemouth to the tower of the fine 

 old abbey of Christchurch and to the New Forest, being 

 here and there clothed with extensive pine plantations. 

 But in fine weather it has a charm of its own and is 

 especially lovely when the yellow furze and purple heather 

 are in full bloom. Even the actual diggings themselves 

 are most picturesque, especially those now abandoned, as 

 there we find little deep blue lakes surrounded by many- 

 coloured cliffs fifty feet in height, in which bright yellows, 

 magentas, and crimsons predominate. I do not apply 

 the word blue to the small lakes poetically, for they 

 are of an intense blue, finer in colour than the famed 

 blue of the waters of some of the Swiss lakes. The heath 

 is, in some patches, of a magenta colour, where a crimson 

 clay patch forms the soil. ^ we examine these chffs and 

 banks v^e find them composed of clays dark or white, or 

 red and white mottled, of layers of coarse grey grit and of 

 sands of every shade of red and yellow, white, and varie- 

 gated. Often the sands have angular lumps of clay im- 

 bedded in them. The quarrying is mostly done in open 

 pits, the clay being dug out perpendicularly with a long 

 and narrow spade. Some of the deeper seams are mined, 

 and a considerable depth is reached in Mr. Pike's work- 

 ings, and at Branksea it is worked under the sea-level. 

 These pipeclays are exported to all parts of the world 

 Avherever good pottery is made. 



Overlying the pipeclays we find another series of de- 

 posits, which are not here quarried for use, but looked 

 upon as refuse; but near Bournemouth they are dug into 

 in many places for the brick earth contained in them. 

 They are easily distinguished by the darker colour and 

 more sandy nature of the clays. These drab clay basins 

 are of smaller extent and are full of remains of decayed 

 leaves, and have actual seams of coal in them, which is 

 burnt by the villagers. We now cross Poole Harbour, at 

 hi^;h tide a magnificent sheet of water, the distant hills, 

 behind which the sun sets, giving it the appearance of an 

 Italian lake, and glance ac Branksea Island as we pass — 

 the owner of which, however, will not allow us to land. In 

 the sheltered bay of Studland we can see but little of the 

 cliifs, as they are now mostly overgrown to the very beach. 

 We are struck, however, by the coloured sands which 

 forcibly remind those of us who are fainiliar with them of 

 the still more biilliant hues of the sands at Alum Bay. 



Being ferried across the inlet of Poole Harbour and 

 walking along the beach towards Bournemouth, we find 

 the coast for the first mile composed of hills of blown 

 sand, beyond which the chffs we have been viewing from 

 a distance rapidly rise. These cliffs are themselves of 

 rather monotonous appearance, being devoid of the bril- 

 liant colouring so conspicuous at Alum and Studland Bays, 

 but they are crowned for the greater part of their length 

 wiih pine woods. Their colour varies from buff to white 

 and from white to slate colour. We notice apparently 

 endless successions of clays, sands, and grits deposited at 

 different angles and without any single bed being trace- 

 able for moie than a few yards. The cliffs, preserving 

 the same characters for a distance of four miles, extend 

 to near Boscombe, where we notice a change in their 

 composition. The clays are black and still more sandy, 

 the upper parts of the cliffs are far less steep and seem 



composed of loose white sands and shingle with a thick 

 capping of gravel. 



At length still further east these beds disappear beneath 

 the sea in consequence of the general dip of the strata. 

 The sand beds which follow, where they cap the cliffs, 

 are recognised from a great distance by their greater 

 slope from the cliff shorewards, for they are so loosely 

 composed that every wind blows the sand away in clouds 

 and leaves the shingle to rattle down on to the beach. 

 So loose is this material that that part of the coast line 

 which had cliffs composed of this sand has now but an 

 insignificant height ; all the sand has been blown away by 

 wind and wasted by rain, until the shingle has been left 

 dropping lower and lower, and the stones which neither 

 wind nor rain could affect, have come closer and closer 

 together. This is the cause of the land connecting Hen- 

 gistbury Head being much lower than any other in the 

 neighbourhood. The shingly beds are ancient sea 

 beaches, and the slope of them to the ancient sea can 

 still be seen in places. So long have they been exposed 

 that the flint pebbles in them are sometimes almost de- 

 composed, the familiar white coating to the flints being 

 an inch or moie thick. This shingle, which is composed 

 of rounded pebbles, that tell the tale of a long rolling 

 on the old sea beach, is now the source of the pebbles on 

 the present beach, and the round condition of the pebbles 

 on the present beach on this part of the coast is not as on 

 the shore further towards Poole, or as at Brighton, the 

 result of present wave action, although the existing 

 sea has undoubtedly reduced the pebbles in size. They 

 cannot be confounded with the later angular river gravels 

 which everywhere cover this area. 



At the peninsula of Hengistbury Head, about six miles 

 beyond Bournemouth, the cliffs again rise, being at first 

 composed of black, chocolate-coloured, and white sands 

 with pebbles, and farther on of green clayey sands con- 

 taining nodules of large irregularly-shaped concretions of 

 sandy, argillaceous ironstone disposed in layers, until 

 lately worked for iron and shipped to the smelting fur- 

 naces of South Wales. Beyond Christchurch Harbour we 

 have cliffs of white sand which, according to my views, 

 close the series. 



Inland the country has a barren appearance except in 

 the plantations, and the scattered brick pits afford no 

 additional information of use to us in our present re- 

 searches. There is but little of interest to the tourist 

 except on the very edges of the district where the archaeo- 

 logist will be interested in the Minsters of Christchurch, 

 with its associated ruins, Wimborne, and the ruins of 

 Corfe Castle. 



No order of arrangement is at first apparent in these 

 beds, but by going backwards and forwards over the 

 ground attentively there is, it seems to me, a very well- 

 marked and recognisable sequence. I will now tell you 

 what I take to be this sequence. It has never been sub- 

 mitted to geologists before, and it is possible, as is often 

 the case with new work, that there may be some objec- 

 tions raised to it. 



FRESHWATER. MARINE 



Fg. 



I would refer to the diagram (Fig. i) where I have ex- 

 pressed my reading of this district. This lower fresh-water 

 series is seen in the neighbourhood of Corfe and forms part 

 of the cliffs at Studland. It is characterised by abundance 

 of pipeclays, and has a thickness of 200 feet or more. 



The middle freshwater series, also met with near Corfe 



