﻿Geologists* Associatmi. 129 



Geologists' Association, University College, 5th Jan., 1877. — 

 William Carruthbrs, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair, 



A paper was read by J. Starkie Gardner, Esq., F.G.S., " On the 

 Bournemouth Leaf-Beds." The author described the nature of 

 the operations in the Bournemouth Leaf-Beds which he has been 

 carrying on for some years past, and explained that, having spent 

 some time with the President, Mr. Carruthers, at Poole Harbour in 

 the summer of 1876, he had been requested by him to give some 

 account of this most interesting palseobotanical locality to the 

 members of the Geologists' Association. Having given some general 

 description of the locality, he said : If we examine these cliffs and 

 banks, we find them composed of clays dark or white, or red and 

 white mottled, of layers of coarse grey grit and of sands of every 

 shade of red and yellow, white, and variegated. Often the sands 

 have angular lumps of clay imbedded in them. The quarrying is 

 mostly done in open pits, the clay being dug out perpendicularly 

 with a long and narrow spade. Some of the deeper seams are 

 mined, and a considerable depth is reached in Mr. Pike's workings, 

 and at Branksea similar pipe-clay is worked under the sea-level. 



Overlying the pipe-clays we find another series of deposits, which 

 are not here quarried for use, but looked upon as refuse ; but near 

 Bournemouth they are dug into in many places for the brick-earth 

 contained in them. They are easily distinguished by the darker 

 colour and more sandy .nature of the clays. These drab clay-basins 

 are of smaller extent, and are full of remains of decayed leaves, and 

 have actual seams of coal in them, which is burnt by the villagers. 

 In the sheltered bay of Studland we can see but little of the cliffs, 

 as they are now mostly overgrown to the very beach. One is struck, 

 however, by the coloured sands, which forcibly remind those who are 

 familiar with them of the still more brilliant hues of the sands at 

 Alum Bay. 



Being ferried across the inlet of Poole Harbour, and walking along 

 the beach towards Bournemouth, we find the coast for the first mile 

 composed of hills of blown sand, beyond which the cliffs we have 

 been viewing from a distance rapidly rise. These cliffs are them- 

 selves of rather monotonous appearance, being devoid of the 

 brilliant colouring so conspicuous at Alum and Studland Bays. 

 Their colour varies from buff to white, and from white to slate 

 colour. We notice apparently endless successions of clays, sands, 

 and grits deposited at different angles, and without any single bed 

 being traceable for more than a few yards. The cliffs, preserving 

 the same characters for a distance of four miles, extend to near 

 Boscombe, where we notice a change in their composition. The clays 

 are black and still more sandy, the upper parts of the cliffs are Iht 

 less steep and seem composed of loose white sands and shingle with 

 a thick capping of gravel. 



Still further to the east these beds disappear beneath the sea in 

 consequence of the genei'al dip of the strata. The sand beds which 

 follow, where they cap the cliffs, are recognized from a distance by 

 their greater slope from the cliff shorewards, for they are so loosely 



DECADE II. — VOL. IV. — NO. III. 9 



