289 



PROCEEDINGS, 



ETC. 



POSTPONED PAPERS. 



A Stratigraphical Account of the Section from Atherfield to 

 RocKEN End, on the South-west coast of the Isle of Wight. 

 By William Henry Fitton, M.D. &c. 



[Read January 22, 1845*.] 



[The following paper was ordered to be printed in the Quarto Transactions, 

 but circumstances having retarded the publications of the Geological Society in 

 that form, it is inserted in this Journal at the special request of the author.] 



The remarkable section which is the subject of the following pages 

 had been described in papers which I published in 1824 and 1833f, 

 with such lists of the fossils as I could then supply ; but the great 

 attention which the corresponding portion of the strata beneath the 

 chalk has of late years excited, under the name of Terrain Neocomien, 

 made me wish to examine the place anew, and to obtain a more adequate 

 collection. Having made some progress, I employed a very active 

 collector of specimens during the last year, and was about to return 

 to the Island to continue my work, when I found that I should inter- 

 fere with the operations which Captain Ibbetson had then begun for 

 the purpose of extending his well-known model of the " Back" of the 

 Isle of Wight, to Atherfield. My task has been since concluded, 

 and I now lay the result before this Society. 



It is necessary to mention here, that the collection of specimens 

 upon this coast is impracticable without able assistance ; so that it is 

 only by residence, or frequent visits, and the aid of a quarryman, that 

 a collection fairly representing the contents of the strata can be ob- 

 tained^. Until experience convinced me of this difficulty, I was dis- 

 appointed by finding that so few additions had been made to my lists 



* The interval between the reading and the publication of this paper has fur- 

 nished several additions to my collection of fossils, and enabled me to go again to 

 the coast accompanied by Mr. Morris, with whom I had the satisfaction of ex- 

 amining the sections at Compton Bay and Atherfield, having previously seen that 

 between Sundown and Culvercliff. The publication also of Captain Ibbetson's and 

 Mr. Edward Forbes's papers (* Geological Proceedings,' vol. iv. and ' Journal,' 

 vol. i., and ' Reports of the British Association for 1844,' p. 43) gave me the 

 benefit of their valuable observations, especially in an examination of the coast 

 near Shanklin. The additions to the original paper now include a review of all 

 the sections of the lower green sand in the Isle of Wight, with such other informa- 

 tion as the author has obtained up to the present time. — {June 1847.) 



t Thomson's Annals of Philosophy for 1824, vol. viii. Geol. Trans. 2nd Series, 

 vol. iv. p. 103, &c. 



X My collector and guide was Charles Wheeler, now resident at Ventnor, to 

 whose skill, both in detecting and extracting fossils, I am largely indebted. 



