226 Renews — Geology of the Isle of Wight. 



pressure, no results worth speaking of have followed ; and the 

 Bude beds, M. Spring's experiments notwithstanding, are still in an 

 " awaiting" attitude. I think these unfortunate rocks have some 

 ground of complaint. They possess, as I have shown, the chemical 

 composition of granite, but though they have certainly suffered many 

 things at the hands of dynamic physicians, they have not been con- 

 verted into granite ; and indeed have not as yet made even a Sabbath 

 day's journey towards that happy goal ! 



BEYIE WS. 



I. — The Geology of the Isle of Wight. By the late Henry 

 W. Bristow, F.R.S., etc. Second Edition, revised and enlarged, 

 by Clement Reid, F.L.S., F.G.S., and Aubrey Strahan, M.A., 

 F.G.S. Geological Survey Memoir. 8vo. London, 1889, 

 pp. 349. With Geological Map, Plates and other Illustrations. 

 Price 8s. Qd. 



rpHE geology of the Isle of Wight has up to the present time been 

 J illustrated and described in two official memoirs, not to mention 

 the one-inch Geological Survey Map, and a series of longitudinal 

 and vertical sections. The Memoir on the Tertiary Fluvio-marine 

 Formation, by Edward Forbes, was published posthumously under 

 the editorship of R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, in 1856 ; the general 

 Memoir on the Geology of the island, by Bristow, was published in 

 1862, and has long been out of print. For some years Mr. Bristow 

 had been gathering materials for a revised edition of his work, but 

 a re-survey of the island, on the Six-inch scale, made in 1886-87 by 

 Messrs. Reid and Strahan, has enabled them to make so many and 

 important changes in the Memoir, that the work may well be 

 described as a new one. 



On glancing at the tables of strata given in the two works, it 

 will be noted that nearly double the number of subdivisions shown 

 on the old map have been marked on the new edition. This is 

 partly due to the mapping of the Recent and Pleistocene Beds. 

 Mr. Strahan, however, has been able to map out the several divisions 

 of the Lower Greensand, Upper Greensand, and Chalk, which were 

 not before distinguished on the map. He points out that the 

 Wealden rocks are separated from the Lower Greensand by a 

 sharply-defined lithological demarcation, accompanied by a palaaon- 

 tological break, and by some erosion. When the name " Punfield 

 Beds" was introduced by Prof. Judd, the true base of the Lower 

 Greensand had not been discovered in the Dorsetshire locality, 

 hence part of the " Punfield Beds " at Punfield was made up of 

 Lower Greensand, while the whole of the group in the Isle of 

 Wight was referable to the Wealden Beds. This inconsistency 

 was shown originally by Mr. C. J. A. Meyer. His observations 

 have been fully confirmed by Mr. Strahan, who gives further 

 particulars of the beds exposed on the Dorsetshire coast, as well 

 as in the Isle of Wight. 



