58 THE RIDGWAY FAULT. 



Though it is not within the scope of the present subject to give 

 a list of the various contributions which have from time to time 

 been added to the common stock relating to the Chalk of Dorset, I 

 cannot help alluding to some of these which have a special 

 reference to the question, and which may enable us to estimate 

 more thoroughly the interest of the landscape before us. After 

 merely noticing the paper of J. F. Berger, written in 1811, we find 

 that one of the earliest of the published accounts of the 

 neighbouring geology was that of Webster, in the 4th volume of 

 the Geological Transactions for 1814. Here the author traces the 

 connection of the white chalk of the Needles with that of Handfast 

 Point and the Old Harry Rocks, and speculates on the probable 

 continuity of the chalk beneath the London Basin, though he says 

 that the deep wells of London have never reached the chalk itself. 

 He subsequently notices the existence of a bed of pipe clay in a 

 horizontal position on the north side of the chalk hills from 

 Handfast Point to Cerfe Castle, containing a thin bed of coal, which 

 he feels convinced is the same bed of coal originally continuous 

 with that of Alum Bay, to use his own words " That this 

 circumstance added to the quality of the clay, and its geognostic 

 position is sufficient to identify it." Further, he mentions that beds 

 of ferruginous sand^.and ironstone occur in both Dorset and Alum 

 Bay considerable rocks of it are seen about Studland, and the 

 Druidical monument called Agglestone, near that place, is a large 

 block of that material. These deductions are interesting to us, 

 but they are the more remarkable when we remember at what an 

 early date in the history of geological investigation they were made, 

 and yet how closely they correspond with the knowledge of to-day. 

 In the year 1814 but little progress had been made in the science, 

 and much that was kncwn had still to be unlearnt Plutonism 

 and catastrophy were the prevailing theories. William Smith's 

 geological map of England, which placed the British sedimentary 

 strata in an unvarying sequence, was not published until 1815. 

 Sir Charles Ly ell's classical works did not appear until 1830. 



In the year 1835 Messrs. Buckland and de la Beche published 



