154 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



greenish-blue clay for thirty feet more, which contained, apparently, 

 crushed Palndina. Much of the stone used in the construction of 

 the sea-wall has been obtained from the shore here, opposite the 

 wood. Red and white chiys are based upon the upper bed of 

 stone ; they are seen in the cliffs for a considerable distance, and 

 have furnished the earth manufactured at the brick-pits inside 

 Little Apley Wood. 



The strata begin to arch from about this place, and in so doing 

 disclose a good section of the Osborne Series, especially between 

 Nettlestone and St Helen's, as far as Watch House Point, where 

 the Bembridge Limestone rapidly descends to the shore. The 

 centre of the arch is somewhere near the old Salterns, but among 

 the fossils found, or the strata brought into view, there is no evi- 

 dence of any portion of the Headon series being brought to the 

 surface. 



From the semicircular projection halfway along the bay, to the 

 notch in the coast near the eastern termination of the wood, hard 

 beds with Chara appear at intervals on the shore and beneath the 

 sea-wall, dipping W.S.W. 2°. Opposite Puckpool Farm, and be- 

 tween the Point further east and Nettlestone, there is a broad 

 expanse of bright green marl, which, although dry at low water, 

 and free from blocks of etone, is generally concealed from obser- 

 vation by a thin layer of sand. Two hundred yards west of 

 Nettlestone Point, thick beds of hard sandstone containinor 

 LhrnicBa and large and small Paludina, and calcareous bands, 

 sometimes formed of comminuted shells, which are the same beds 

 as those seen further onwards beneath Priory (Summer-house) 

 Point, appear on the shore forming a cliff, and support the path- 

 way in front of the Crown Inn. Under the Flagstaff, the shelly- 

 limestone which constitutes the upper five feet of the bed is almost 

 entirely made up of comminuted Melania excavata, with bands of 

 Paludina lenta the whole resting on flaggy siliceous grits contain- 

 ing ripple-marks. The rocks at Nettlestone Point are thick- 

 bedded concretionary limestones, in some places soft and composed 

 of comminuted Paludina lenta, in others passing into hard siliceous 

 grit. They constitute large blocks on the shore, eight feet thick, 

 which weather very unequally into irregular cavities, and contain 

 a few small rounded pebbles of flint, larger fragments of sub- 

 angular flint. Turtle bones, and fossils with the shells preserved. 

 The lower four feet become more indurated and cavernous (honey- 

 combed) and pass into hard grit ; while in the freestone, about 

 two feet six inches from the top, there is a well-defined band of 

 LimncBa, six inches in thickness. Green sand, with large flat len- 

 ticular concretions of a yellow colour, which have an irregular 

 surface and resemble scptaria, overlies the limestone. 



Round the Point, the upper part of the thick grit becomes an 

 indurated marl of an ochreous colour, with greenish-grey, argillo- 

 calcareous concretions ; while further east, a short distance west 

 of the boat-house, it becomes a limestone (containing Chara. and 

 Limnaa longiscata)^ which has been quarried on the shore for 



