BEMBRIDGE MAELS. 



181 



Fig. 64. 



Melania 



turritissima, 



Forbes, 



the high-road strikes the coast. Here exceptionally good ex- 

 posures were visible during 1887 and 1888, for though the cliff is 

 low and overgrown, a continuous foreshore of clay was laid bare 

 as far as the first houses in Yarmouth. The strata are so like 

 those on the north side of the synclinal that it is unnecessary to 

 give detailed measurements. The seam with Hydrohia Chasteh 

 again occurs a few feet under the Black 

 Band, and the section below is continued 

 down to the Melania turritissima. (Fig. 64) 

 beds, which lie 10 or 15 feet above the 

 Limestone. The base of the Marls cannot 

 be examined here, but the Limestone out- 

 crops on the other side of Yarmouth, at the 

 Gas Works and Station. 



A good deal of drift wood occurs in the 

 Bembridge Marls between Hamstead and 

 Yarmouth, and thin seams rendered quite 

 black by the number of seeds they contain 

 are often conspicuous on the shore or in the 

 washed base of the cliff. The drift wood does not occur as rafts, 

 but generally as isolated trunks and branches, often of considerable 

 size. One of these trunks, examined by Mr. Keeping and Clement 

 Reid, was cleared for 18 feet without reaching the end. It 

 measured 3| inches thick at the broken smaller end, only in- 

 creasing to 5 inches 13 feet below. The thickness of the over- 

 lying clay prevented us from followini; the tree further, but its 

 straightness and slenderness showed that it had probably grown 

 in a forest — not in open ground. In the Marls near Yarmouth 

 Toll Gate we also obtained portion of the bones of a large teleostean 

 fish. 



Inland sections on the southern side of the synciine are few, 

 and do not expose any of the more characteristic beds. In the 

 railway cuttings near Shalfleet, Cyrena. obtusa (Fig. 65) is common, 

 but no other species were noticed. 



On the west side of the Yar there are 

 three outliers of the Bembridge Marls. 

 The first caps the long ridge between Sconce 

 and Clifi" End for about half a mile. It 

 exhibits no clear sections, and all that can be 

 made out is that cLiys with Cyrena ohovata, 

 C. semistriata, Melania muricata, Melanopsis 

 fusiformis, and Serpnla overlie the lime- 

 stone. The thickness cannot be great ; 

 probably it is under 20 feet. The second 

 outlier, of still smaller extent and thickness, 

 occurs at Hill Cross, south of Norton. 



Shelly marl is found in the road cutting, but there is no section. 



The third outlier underlies the gravel capping Headoa Hill. 



Fig. 65. 



Cyrena obtusa, 

 Forbes. 



