THE GEOLOGY 



OF THE 



ISLE OF WIGHT. 



CHAPTER I. 



Introduction and Table of Strata. 



The Isle of Wight is of a lozenge shape, with its longer axis 

 extending nearly east and west from the Foreland to the Needle?, 

 a distance of 22| miles, and its shorter axis nearly north and 

 south from West Cowes to Rocken End, a distance of 1 3 miles. 

 The northern apex is situated immediately opposite the mouth of 

 Southampton Water. The two northern sides of the Island are 

 nearly parallel Avith the mainland of Hampshire, from which they 

 are separated by the Solent on the west, and on the east by the 

 sea between Southampton Water and Spithead. The nearest 

 point to the mainland is Cliff End, which is only a mile distant 

 from the bank of shingle and sand on which Hurst Castle is 

 situated ; but the Solent is generally from two to three miles in 

 width, while the channel east of Southampton Water reaches a 

 breadth of four miles. The area of the Island, as deduced from 

 the Ordnance Survey, is 155 square miles 370.209 acres, in 

 which are included 122.684 acres of water, 9 square miles 34.076 

 acres of foreshore, and 434.454 acres of tidal water. It is divided 

 into East and West Medina by the River xMedina, which, rising 

 near the southern apex of the Island, runs northwards through a 

 gap in the chalk range, and discharges itself into the sea between 

 East and West Cowes.* A more marked physical division is 

 that produced by a bold range of Chalk Downs, which extends 

 from the .Needles to Culver Cliff.f The area lying to the 

 north of this range is occupied by Tertiary strata,^ and is chiefly 

 characterised by the heavy and clayey nature of the land, and 

 by the numerous woods which cover its surface, especially east 

 of the River Medina. The tract of land south of the chalk range 

 is occupied chiefly by the Lower Greensand, and presents a 



* The Isle of "Wight was called " Meden " iu former times. The Roman name for 

 it was Vectis. In Camden's Saxon Chronicle and Domesday Book and in the 

 oldest records it is written " Wict." — H. W. B. 



t Culver Cliff (after the Anglo-Saxon name " culfre," a dove) was probably so 

 named from its being the resort of numerous wild pigeons of a small species {Columba 

 saxitilis) which made it their haunt. Pennant states that " these birds make at a 

 certain season most enormous flights ; they come daily in vast flocks, as far as the 

 neighbourhood of Oa-ford, to feed on the turnip-fields, and return again to these 

 and Freshwater Cliffs, where they pass the night." (Pennant's Journey, p. 151.) 

 Culver Ciiff was also famous for a breed of hawks in the time of Queen Elizabeth.— 

 H. W. B. 

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