X. A Sketch of the Geology of some parts of Hampshire and Dorsetshire. 



By J. F. Beegepx, M.D. 

 Honorary Member of the Geological Society. 



i\LTHOUGH the chalk hills form the most striking feature of 

 Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, they do not occupy 

 the whole of the surface of those counties. Several other strata 

 or mineral beds there occur, the general arrangement of which it is 

 the purpose of this communication briefly to illustrate. 



The chalk hills which appear on the south eastern-coast of the 

 Isle of Wight traverse the interior of that district in a line nearly 

 due west to the Needles ; they are interrupted by the sea, and by 

 the alluvial deposits on the eastern side of Studland Bay ; but re- 

 appear at Corfe Castle, and on the coast at Lulworth, from which 

 last place they may be observed passing towards Weymouth, still 

 preserving their original direction, having left to the south of them 

 nearly the whole of the Isle of Purbeck. 



The breadth of this range of chalk is not very considerable, for 

 the entire coast from Christchurch Bay to Poole lies to the North 

 of it. 



The dip of the strata varies from N.E. to S.E. but the point of 

 the compass, towards which they all tend, is the east.* 



* In the S.S.W. coast of the Isle of Wight, below St. Catherine's Sea-mark, the dip 

 of the strata is E.N.E. In the southern coast called the Under Cliffy the dip is N- b/ 



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