92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DeC. 3, 



the sea-shore. This stream rises from beneath the sand beds inland, 

 and flows through the alluvial gravel to the summit of the cliff. 



The author then proceeded to quote a graphic description of this 

 spot, written nearly thirty-five years ago by Mr. Webster*, and 

 he referred also to the account given twenty years afterwards by 

 Dr. Fittonf , who considers the compact variegated clay and sand 

 appearing below the sand-rock of the Point as the lowest visible 

 strata of the island. Both Mr. Webster and Dr. Fitton mention the 

 great abundance of fossil wood at this spot, where there have been 

 found many large trunks of petrified coniferous trees, of a dark 

 brown colour. This petrified forest occurs in the variegated sand- 

 rock above alluded to, and the stratigraphical features of the cliff 

 containing it have therefore been long known. It appears that the 

 projecting masses at the base of the cliff are the protruding edges of 

 the sand-rock in which the fossil trees were imbedded, for this rock, 

 from its greater hardness, resists the action of the waves long after 

 the upper and less coherent strata have been washed away. The 

 reefs seen at low water have in this way been formed. 



Fossil Forest. — " The trees are lying confusedly one upon another. 

 I saw no erect trunks, or any other indication that the forest had been 

 submerged while growing in its native soil like that of the Isle of 

 Portland ; but, on the contrary, the appearance both of the trunks 

 in the sand-rock, and of those exposed to view by the removal of 

 the materials in which they were originally imbedded, is that pre- 

 sented by the rafts that float down great rivers, as for example the 

 Ohio and Mississippi. Such rafts entangle in their course the re- 

 mains of animals and plants that may happen to lie in the bed of 

 the river, and at length subside and are buried in silt and sand. 

 The fossil trees in this cliff are associated with large river shells 

 and with the bones of colossal land reptiles. The fossil forest at 

 Brook Point we may therefore consider as a raft of pines which 

 floated down the river of the country near which the Wealden beds 

 were deposited, and had become submerged in the delta or estuary 

 at its mouth, burying with it the bones of reptiles and the large 

 freshwater mussels it had entangled in its course. 



" The trees when lying in the sandstone are invariably covered 

 with their bark, which is now in the state of lignite, varying from 

 one to three or four inches in thickness, according to the magnitude 

 of the trunk. This carbonized cortical investment is quickly re- 

 moved on exposure to the action of the waves, but the ligneous 

 structure, the woody fibre, remains. 



" The trees are calcareous and not siliceous like those of Portland. 

 They are more or less traversed by pyrites, and the delicate veins 

 and filaments of this mineral which permeate the woody fibre im- 

 part a beautiful appearance to the polished specimens, particularly 

 to those which exhibit a transverse section of the stems. The trunks 

 are generally of considerable magnitude, being from one to three 



* Englefield's Picturesque Beauties of the Isle of Wight, p. 153. 

 t Geol. Trans., 2nd Ser., vol. iii. p. 202. 



