82 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT 



sea level, and have been found also in the Isle of Wight 

 at Freshwater Gate, at the top of the cliffs near Brook, 

 and in other places. The gravels near Brook with the 

 clays on which they rest have been contorted, and the 

 gravel forced into pockets in the clay, in a manner that 

 suggests the action of grounding ice ploughing into the soil. 



The high level gravels must belong to an early stage of 

 the Glacial Epoch. We get some idea of the great length 

 of time this age must have lasted, as we look from St. 

 George's Down over the lower country of the centre of 

 the Island. After the formation of the St. George's Down 

 gravel the vast mass of strata between this and the opposite 

 downs of St. Boniface and St. Catherine's was removed by 

 denudation ; and gravels were then laid down on the 

 lower land, along Blake Down, at Arreton, over Hale 

 common, and along the course of the Yar. Patches of 

 gravel occur on the Sandown and Shanklin cliffs. At 

 Little Stairs a gravel, largely of angular chert, reaches a 

 thickness of 12 feet, and in parts are several feet of loam 

 above gravel. 



At the west of the Island a great sheet of gravel covers 

 the top of Headon Hill, reaching a height of 390 feet. It 

 appears sometimes to measure 30 feet in thickness, Like 

 that on St. George's Down it slopes towards the Solent, 

 resting on an eroded surface, in this case of Tertiary 

 strata ; and here too the upper part of the sheet has been 

 removed by the wearing out of the deep valley between 

 the Hill and the Freshwater Downs. The sheet lies on 

 an old valley bottom, which sloped from the chalk downs 

 on the south, then much higher and more extensive than 

 now. Here too we may see something of the length of 

 the Glacial Period. For at Freshwater Gate is a much 

 later gravel, in which teeth of the mammoth have been 

 found. It was probably derived from older gravels that 

 once lay to the south, as the flints are rounded by trans- 

 port. But the formation of all these gravels appears to 



