FITTON ON THE ATHERFIELD SECTION. 55 



A Stratigraphical Account of the Section from Atherfield to 

 RocKEN-END in the Isle of Wight. By Wm. H. Fitton, 

 M.D., F.R.S. &c.* 



[Read January 22, 1845.] 



The south coast of the Isle of Wight, it is well known, exhibits the 

 whole series of deposits from the chalk down to the Wealden ; the 

 section, especially of the lower greensand near Atherfield, being of 

 greater thickness than any other in England, while it is continuously 

 exposed and accessible in all its parts. The object of the present 

 communication is to describe this remarkable section anew ; the 

 author stating, that from the time and labour recently employed in 

 extending his collection of the fossils, he believes it to be the most 

 complete that has yet been brought together. The description is illus- 

 trated by a sectional drawing, and by a tabular list of the strata and 

 of the fossils, so arranged that the succession of the beds and strati- 

 graphical place or places of every species may be seen at one view. 

 Such a document being a picture of nature, and representing only 

 what has been actually observed, suggests of itself various general 

 views respecting the order and distribution of the fossils, and may 

 be employed as a test of the soundness of speculations connected 

 with them ; and it is shown that some of the opinions expressed in 

 former numbers of this Journal derive support from the more exten- 

 sive series of facts thus displayed. 



The fossils here enumerated contain a very large number of those 

 considered as characteristic of the corresponding groups on the con- 

 tinent of Europe, to which, in Switzerland and France, the name of 

 ' Neocomian ' has been applied ; but with these are several species 

 not hitherto found except in England. Among the former some of 

 the most remarkable (as Perna Mulleti, &c. &c.) abound, especially 

 in the very lowest beds of the lower greensand, but are there accom- 

 panied by several others, among which the genera Thetis and Ger- 

 villia may be mentioned, which range to a great height in this de- 

 posit. In mineral composition, the abundance of small-grained 

 oolitic iron ore throughout a large space in the section furnishes a 

 point of correspondence with the equivalent groups of the continent, 

 which had not previously been noticed. And among the vegetable 

 remains Mr. Morris has discovered Lonchopteris Mantelli, hitherto 

 confined to the Wealden strata, in so many beds, that the general dif- 

 fusion here of that fossil species is not improbable. 



To the account of the section at Atherfield is subjoined a com- 

 parison with the three other sections of the same groups visible in 

 the Isle of Wight, — at Compton, near Shanklin, and in Sandown 

 Bay : and it is stated that the lowest beds in all those places con- 

 tain many of the same remarkable fossils, Perna Mulleti especially 

 having been thus obtained in great perfection. 



Finally, a brief account is given of the corresponding portions of 



* Ordered for publication, in exteiiso, in the Transactions of the Geological 

 Society. 



