114 GEOLOGY OF TIIK I8LK OF WIGHT, 



Ft. In. 



Hidden by talus - - - - - - 24 



Glauconitic loam with yellow joints and much selenite. 

 Casts oE small oystei-s and other marine shells, and 

 occasional jjieces of' lignite - - - - 5 



Blue loamy clay with selenite and badly preserved fossils. 



Turritellaimhricatar la, ^sh-scsi\es, SiC. - - -!()() 



Clayey loam lull of small quartz and flint-pebbles, and 

 crowded with fossils, mostly small. Ostrea, Cardita, Area, 

 Solen,kc. - - - - - - 6 



Hard loam and clay, full of small fossils - - - 9 6 



Clay with beds of Cardita planicosta and Turritella imbricataria 8 



Laminated loam, clay, and sand, full of lignite. 



The Beds are perfectly vertical. The above beino; distances 

 measured along the beach, an allowance nuist be made for the cliff 

 not cutting the beds at right angles. The true thickness of 

 the measured beds will therefore be 90 feet, instead of 113 feet. 



One or two sections where wiiat is perhaps the base of the 

 Brackleshani Beds is exposed have been mentioned in the last 

 chapter, but the only locality yielding fossils is the cutting leading 

 to A shey Chalk-pit, about three miles south-south-west of Ryde. 

 Here we find, above the London Clay, beds which are full of 

 Bracklesham fossils. It is evident that unless the Brackleshani 

 fauna bere extends to the base of the Lower Bagshot Beds and 

 into the London Clay we can only account for the proximity of 

 the Bracklesham Beds to the Reading Beds by a strike fault, which 

 has cut out the greater part of the London Clay, all the Lower 

 Bagshot Beds, and perhaps part of the Bracklesham Beds also. 



The section is not perfectly clear, but no fault could be 

 detected, and there being no marked line of division between the 

 two formations it is uncertain how nuich belongs to the one and 

 how much to the other. Probably if there is really a fault its 

 position will be at the point marked in the subjoined section. 

 Unfortunately the cutting being shallow at its northern end and a 

 good deal overgrown, it was impossible to obtain details of the 

 higher strata. All are nearly vertical. This disturbance will be 

 again referred to in Ciiapter XIV. 



The highest bed which can be traced is a coal or lignite seam, 

 formerly exposed in an old sand pit close to the line. The pit is 

 now overgrown, but the coal was proved by boring. There 

 follow 262 feet of alternations of laminated clay, loam, sand and 

 seams of white clay. These strata cannot be examined, only the 

 lower portion being seen in the northern end of the cutting, 

 which is much overgrown. Then follow the beds with Bracklesham 

 fossils as below : — 



Section in the railway cutting south of Ashey. 



f Light-blue or greenish loamy sand, crowded 



Bracklesham J with Bracklesham fossils (IV. of Fisher?) - 7 



Beds. I Dark blue loamy clay with a little lignite - 3.'^ 



L Blackish shaly clay with a little lignite - 18 



Probable position of a strike-fault. 



