204 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



sandy loam. Further cast this bed forms several small outliers 

 on the hills around Haven Street. South of Binstead, in the 

 upper part of Stroud Wood Brickyard, more than 7 feet of fine 

 white sand overlie red and mottled clay, and the bed is probably 

 of considerable thickness. On the high land at Upton Mill an old 

 pit has apparently been dug for brick-earth. A boring (B.H. 185) 

 at the bottom of this pit showed a considerable thickness of sand, 

 but no fossils. In another outlier, at East Ashey, the sand has 

 been dug, and it can also be well seen in several parts of the large 

 outlier near Brading, especially in the road cutting between 

 Eicketshill and New Farm. 



The beds overlying the sand in the East Medina only extend 

 over the western part of the area, the marine beds being confined 

 to a small portion of the high ridge between Wootton and Downend. 

 Unfortunately at the time of writing there are no open sections of 

 this part of the Hamstead Series, though wells and trial borings 

 yielded plenty of evidence of their occurrence. At Staplers, where 

 evidently a considerable thickness of clay lies above the sand-bed, 

 two borings (B.H. 109, 110) were made on the top of the hill, to 

 ascertain if any representative of the mai'ine beds existed there. 

 The height of this hill is nearly 300 feet, but the highest beds 

 reached seem to be equivalent to those seen in Parkhurst Forest 

 (B.H. 10), and at Noke Farm (B.H. 91). The thickness of 

 the capping of gravel makes it diflScult to bore at Staplers Hill, 

 but possibly other beds a few feet higher may be represented 

 there. 



Crossing to the parallel ridge further east, we find the beds 

 much hidden by gravel, but fortunately during the progress of 

 the Survey a number of wells were being sunk in this neighbour- 

 hood. The most southerly of these, at some new cottages at the 

 northern end of Little Lynn Common, showed : — 



Feet 

 Drift - Gravel and clay - - - - - 7 



Upper I Blue and green clays with Cerithium • - 12^ 



Wamsteaa > ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^j ^^ Melania infiata, &c. - i 



20 



The fossils, though abundant, belong to few species, the following 

 being all that could be found by J. Rhodes : — 



Cytheridea Miilleri. Hydrobia Chasteli. 



Melania infiata. 

 Cyrena semistriata. 

 Sphaerium (Cyclas). Fish bones. 



Cerithium elegans. Crocodile (scute of). 

 plicatum. 



The fossiliferous clays evidently belong entirely to the Gerithium 

 plicatum beds, though from the thickness of the strata one would 

 expect the base of the more truly marine Gorlmla beds to be also 

 represented. These latter very probably do occur in the upper 

 part of this well, but so much weathered as to have the foss ils 

 entirely destroyed. 



