202 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



represented at Wootton. East of Wootton Creek the Black Band 

 re-appears in Ashlake Brickyard, the section showing the usual 

 weathered soil underneath it, and also the thin QQixxa oi Melania 

 muricata and Hydrobia Chasteli. The base of the Hamstead 

 Series lies unexpectedly low in this pit, and various indications 

 ajipear to show that its position is largely due to a landslip of 

 ancient date. 



Borings in Firestone Copse did not yield any definite results, 

 but one about the middle of the wood (B.H. 172), and two beyond 

 the southern end (B.H. 168, 167) seemed to traverse the lower 

 parts of the Series. 



East of Ashlake the boundary is again much obscured by gravel, 

 but about a quarter of a mile south of Binstead Lodge the 

 Nemahira beds were well shown in a boring (B.H. 180). As this 

 is the most easterly point to which the Nematura beds have yet 

 been traced, it may be interesting to note that the beds remain 

 unaltered and contain the same assemblage of fossils as at Hamstead 

 (31ifF. The section is : — 



Feet. 

 Free-cutting loam, full of ' race' - - 3 



Stiff dark -blue and brown clay, rather carbona- 

 ceous and with small pieces of lignite - - 8 

 fBluer clay, not so carbonaceous. Nematura 

 I /?Mjja and Cyrena semistriata - - - 3 

 Nematura J Blacker clay, Nematura pupa, Hydrobia Chasteli, 

 Beds. ] Neritina tristis, Cerithium elegans, Cyrena semi- 

 ( striata,Modiola Prestwichii, Cytheridea Muelleri, 

 \_ and otolith and bones of Fish - - - 2 

 Green carbonaceous clay - - - 1 



17 



Similar beds, or perhaps beds a few feet higher or lower, were 

 found in another boring (B.H. 199) by the side of the high-road a 

 quarter of a mile west of Stroud Wood. Between Binstead and 

 Brading the Black Band has not been found, though the Hamstead 

 Series undoubtedly extends as far as Brading, and the Nematura 

 beds were reached in a boring (B.H. 199) at Hardingshute. No 

 sufficient evidence of the occurrence of Hamstead Beds has yet 

 been obtained at St. Helen's, but from the height of the hill 

 there may be an outlier of considerable size under the gravel. 

 Returning to Newport, we will now follow the southern margin 

 of the basin towards Brading. The first section of the Black 

 Band met with was found in a boring (B.H. 99) at the angle of 

 the road north of Great Pan, but the dip is there so high that 

 other borings a few yards away pierced quite different beds. Near 

 Little Pan the Black Band is again met with, and a series of 

 borings (B.H. 108 to 103) showed the change upwards into red 

 and mottled clays and then into fine sands. None of these borings 

 were markedly fossiliferous, but there seems to be a gap in the 

 series of borings just where the Nematura beds ought to occur. 



North ofDurton Farm a boring (B.H. 115) showed carbonaceous 

 clays belonging to the Nematura beds. The Black Band has not 

 been reached in this neighbourhood, and the dip is so high and 



