1856.] BECKLES — HASTINGS CLIFFS. 289 



The group that I am about to describe consists of sandstone and 

 clays, remarkable for their great diversity of hue, and are subordinate 

 to those beds of conglomeratic shale and ironstone which Mr. Web- 

 ster has described as the lowest strata visible in the series. They 

 are supplemental, therefore, to the strata comprised, or intended to 

 be comprised, in that author's notice*. At the date, however, of 

 his Memoir they were partially disclosed, although perhaps not at 

 those detached points where he traced his lowest strata. 



Mr. Webster, in speaking of the strata to the east of Hastings, 

 remarks, that " the lowest strata visible in this series consist of a 

 dark-coloured shale (m, m), which is seen at the Govers and at 

 Cliff End, and contain small roundish masses of sandstone, toge- 

 ther with several layers (two of them from two to three inches thick) 

 of rich argillaceous iron-ore." On the west of Eaglesbourne this last 

 bed rises, in an arch, to the height of about twelve feet and then de- 

 scends to the east. At Cliff End it reappears, and may be traced 

 at low- water, forming a ledge. 



In Mr. Webster's paper the " shale with its courses of argillaceous 

 iron-ore," described as the lowest beds, are noticed to the west of 

 the Govers and at Cliff End; and the occupation of the inter- 

 mediate space (about four miles in extent) is ascribed to superior 

 strata. In the stratigraphical section f annexed to that commu- 

 nication, the exposure of these, as well as of the substrata about 

 midway between the Govers and Cliff End, is clearly indicated by 

 an arched line from Lee Ness to Hook's Point ; but in the Expla- 

 natory Memoir the succession here is mistaken, and the lower strata 

 are identified by the author (who at this point did not recognize his 

 lowest bed) with strata lettered by him ly l, — supposed to be much 

 higher in the same series. 



The shale, with its associated ironstone (m, m, in the annexed 

 sketch-section), first emerges from the beach immediately on the 

 east of Hastings, gradually rising into the cliff ; it reaches the height 

 of about 20 feet, and describes a curve, which, continuing on the 

 eastern side of the picturesque valley of Eaglesbourne, descends to 

 the beach at about 440 yards to the east of Eaglesbourne After 

 passing under the present beach at the Govers, it reappears at the 

 foot of that place, and so continues until it reaches Lee Ness Point, 

 when it rises again into the cliff, forming another and more extended 

 arch from Lee Ness to Hook's Point, when it returns a second time 

 to the beach, and continues to Cliff End, where it forms the ledge 

 described by Mr. Webster;}:. 



The most elevated points of all these beds have long been con- 

 spicuous in the vertical face of the cliff ; while in the intervening 

 depressions they have either sunk below the sea-level, or have been 

 obscured by the ruins of the superior strata. 



Although the stratum lettered m, m, is continuous through the 

 section, yet it does not retain its mixed character of shale and iron- 



* Trans, Geol. Soc. 2nd Series, vol. ii. p. 31 et seq. f Loc. cit. pi. 5. 



X When Mr. Webster wrote, these beds were about 12 feet above the beach 

 at this place ; they are now nearer 20 feet. 



