

XXXV11. 



seven sections and fixed against the garden wall. The party then took 

 leave of their kind hosts, and started for the Axminster Railway Station. 

 This brought another thoroughly successful meeting to a conclusion. 



THE LULWORTH MEETING was held on Wednesday, August 19tlr 

 From the lendezvous at Wool station the party proceeded to Lul worth 

 Cove, where they were joined by many others residing in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Here the business of the day was attacked. The President 

 returned thanks to the Club for once more electing him, and for the 

 kindly expressions of sympathy which he had received from time to time 

 during his late illness. He then delivered an address on the geological 

 features of the Cove, which were clearly visible from where they were 

 standing, of which only a digest can be given here. He said he did not 

 know a more interesting geological district than that now presented to 

 them. The whole series of the Wealden and Purbeck is compressed 

 within the limits of the Cove. The Purbeck beds range from the 

 Paludina bed at the top to the dirt bed at the base, where the old land 

 surface is exposed, on which grew extensive forests, the stumps and roots 

 of which may now be seen in the cliff. One of the Cycads (Mantellia 

 nidiformis) is described and figured in the second volume of the 

 " Proceedings" of the Club. The Cycads belong to the family now 

 growing only in the tropical and temperate regions of America and Asia. 

 The conifers belong to the family Araucaria. The deposition of the dirt 

 bed must have occupied a long period to allow for the growth of extensive 

 forests, which extended as far as the Vale of Wardour. The lower Pur- 

 beck beds rest unconformably on the Portland beds, and must have been 

 submerged when the area on which the forests grew formed the estuary 

 of the Purbeck river, as well as that of the Hastings river, which vied 

 in extent with the estuaries of the great rivers of America and Asia 

 with the Mississippi and the Indus. The whole district was submerged 

 more than once, and entirely dominated by the sea, but there is no 

 evidence of any sudden or violent disturbance. As the inclination of the 

 beds is similar to that of the superincumbent chalk and greensand, the 

 whole mass was probably raised during great disturbances and denuda- 

 tions subsequent to the Eocene period, affecting the Isle of Wight, 

 Purbeck, and the Weymouth areas, and are perhaps synchronous with 

 the great Ridgeway Fault. The calcareous slabs which' cap the dirt bed 

 are broken up, and recemented by a stalactitic deposit. Above these 

 follows a series of marly limestones alternating with thin clays abounding 

 in Cyprideae, freshwater shales, fish scales, and an Isopod Crustacean 

 Archaeoniscus. The middle beds differ from the upper and lower in 



