192 CrEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



reaches a thickness of about 40 feet and forms a marked 

 topographical feature. 



The White Band is characterised by two species of Gerithium 



(C. inornatum and C. Sedgwickii). It also contains abundance of 



Melania fas data (Fig. 74) and Mya {Panopcea) minor, 



^i^'^'- ''1' (Fig- 75), but the fossils are so much decayed and so 



ciatT'kow' fi'^gile that no determinable specimens were obtained 



from any of the borings in Farkhurst Forest. 



Above the White Band there is a gap of 70 or 

 80 feet before another marked fossiliferous horizon 

 is met with. The intervening beds are generally 

 much obscured by mud-streams and landslips, but 

 they appear to be very sparingly fossili- 

 Fig. /5. ferous. None of the inland borings or 



anopcea minmj^^^^^^ . ^ygii.gectiQj^g yielded much of interest in this 

 part of the Hamstead Beds. As the series 

 of borings in Parkhurst Forest penetrated 

 the whole without meeting with any con- 

 -— spicuous shell beds, it is probable that 



such are absent. 



About 140 feet above the Black Band, and 120 feet below the 

 marine beds lies a bed of compact laminated clay full of a 

 peculiar creeping root, and containing leaves of Palm and Water- 

 lily (Nelumbium), &c.* This horizon forms a ledge or low cliff, 

 over which the softer overlying beds slip. It has not yet been 

 recognised inland ; but as there are no open sections on this 

 horizon, and the plants would not be preserved in the small cores 

 obtained by boring, the leaf-bed may cover a considerable area. 



The marine beds commence about 224 feet above the Black 

 Band, and range upwards to the highest point reached (see sketch 

 by Edward Forbes, Fig. 76, p. 193). Unfortunately they are 

 confined to a small outlier of a few acres on Hamstead and 

 Bouldnor Cliffs, and another about half a mile long at Wootton in 

 the East Medina. 



A reference to the table on p. 189 will show the approximate 

 position of the beds mentioned in the description of the inland 

 sections, for though, as in all the Oligocene Beds, a considerable 

 amount of lateral change may be remarked, yet certain marked 

 beds extend persistently over the whole of the area. 



The notes made in the course of the re-survey were so 

 voluminous that it has been necessary greatly to condense them ; 

 but all the well-sections will be found in the Appendix, and the 

 position of each of the trial-borings is marked on the 6-inch maps 

 deposited in the Office of the Geological Survey. As the number 

 of the trial-borings in Hamstead Beds amounted to nearly three 

 hundred, it has not been thought advisable to print so bulky a 

 record, but wherever fossiliferous strata of marked character were 

 met with, the occurrence will be found recorded in the text. 



* J. S. Gardner. Kepori of the Committee for ... . exploring the Higher 

 Eocene Beds of the Isle of Wight. Report Brit. Assoc, for 1887, p. 414. 



