30 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT 



near the mouth, just as happens with great accumulations 

 of timber which float down the Mississippi at the present 

 day. The greater part of the wood has been replaced 

 by stone, the bark remaining as a carbonaceous substance 

 like coal, which, however, is quickly destroyed when 

 exposed to the action of the waves. The fossil trees are 

 mostly covered with seaweed. On the trunks may some- 

 times be found black shining scales of a fossil fish, 

 Lepidotus Mantelli. (A stratum full of the scales of 

 Lepidotus has been recently exposed in the Wealden of 

 Sandown Bay.) The strata with the Pine Raft form the 

 lowest visible part of the anticline. From Brook Point 

 the Wealden strata dip in each direction, east and west. 

 As the coast does not cut nearly so straight across the 

 strata as in Sandown Bay, we see a much longer section 

 of the beds. On either side of the Point are coloured 

 marls, followed by blue shales, as at Sandown. To the 

 westward, however, after the shales we suddenly come to 

 variegated marls again, followed by a second set of shales. 

 There was long a question whether this repetition is due 

 to a fault, or whether local conditions have caused a 

 variation in the type of the beds. The conclusion of the 

 Geological Survey Memoir, 1889, rather favoured the 

 latter view, on the ground of the great change which has 

 taken place in the character of the beds in so short a 

 distance, assuming them to be the same strata repeated. 

 The conjecture of the existence of a fault has, however, 

 been confirmed ; for during the last years a most interest- 

 ing section has been visible at the junction of the shales 

 and marls, where a fault was suspected. The shales in 

 the cliff and on the shore are contorted into the form of a 

 Z. The section appears to have become visible about 

 1904 (it was in the spring of that year that I first saw it), 

 and was described by Mr. R. W. Hooley, F.G.S. (Proc. 

 Geol. Ass., vol. xix., 1906, pp. 264, 265). It has remained 

 visible since. 



