VII. — On a Fresh-water Formation in Hordwell Cliff, Hampshire ; and 

 on the subjacent Beds, from Hordwell to Muddiford. 



By T. WEBSTER, Secretary to the Geological Society. 



[ Read December 7, 1821.] 



Tn the memoir which I presented to this Society in the year 1813*, on the 

 fresh-water formations of the Isle of Wight, I mentioned Hordwell Cliff as 

 consisting- of the London clay. I had not then had an opportunity of visiting 

 the spot, but depended upon the descriptions of others. 



So long ago as the year 1766, a work was published by Gustavus Brander, 

 under the title of Fossilia Hantoniensia. It contained remarkably good 

 engravings of a number of shells and other organic bodies, collected (as is 

 stated in the preface) in the cliffs between Christchurch and Lymington in 

 Hampshire ; but chiefly near the village of Hordwell. 



Some time since, the agreement observed between those fossils of Hamp- 

 shire, and those of the London clay found at Highgate and other places, 

 pointed out the identity of the beds from which they were derived ; and it was 

 by the same kind of agreement in the fossils, that I was enabled to show, 

 (in the paper above referred to,) that the northernmost of the vertical beds at 

 Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight, corresponded generally to the London clay, 

 but more especially to this bed near Hordwell which belongs to that forma- 

 tion ; and, consequently, to establish the relative geognostic situations of the 

 remaining vertical beds at Alum Bay, and also of the alternating fresh-water 

 and marine strata. 



But the proof, by which I endeavoured to establish the identity of the beds 

 at Alum Bay and at Hordwell, resting almost entirely on the fossils, it was 

 necessary, in the present advanced state of geological science, to have the addi- 

 tional evidence of other circumstances : and with the view of examining this 

 subject still more closely, I have very lately again visited those places. 



* Transactions of the Geological Society, Vol ii. p. 161. 



