Yol. 62.] THE CLAY-WITH-FLINTS. 153 



exactly in accordance with the view that they are the remnants of 

 Eocene outliers. Thus, on Dean Hill there are four patches of Clay- 

 with-Elints, which are so arranged that their boundaries show an 

 eastward slope from 500 to 300 feet ; and the largest one slopes 

 south-eastward from the ridge-summit at 440 feet to about 350 

 feet, its termination being within half a mile of the Eocene 

 boundary at 300 feet above Ordnance-datum. The tracts on the 

 northern limb of the syncline are similarly disposed on a rising 

 plane, which appears to be the natural prolongation of the basal 

 Eocene plane. Thus, at a point near the junction of Sheets 298 

 & 299, the Eocene boundary-line is at a level of 222 feet ; and 

 north of this tracts of C^-with-Flints rise from 300 to a height 

 of 500 feet at Winterslow, in a distance of about 2| miles. 



Earther east, near Winchester, we find another distinct uplift 

 coming in, which does not seem to be connected with either of the 

 anticlines to the westward. This may be called the Winchester 

 pericline, but it is really the periclinal termination of the 

 Petersfield and Meon- Valley anticline. The centre of this pericline 

 does not coincide with the centre of the Lower Chalk-exposure, but 

 with the eastern end of that exposure near Chilcombe, where the 

 base of the Middle Chalk is 160 feet higher than it is below the 

 alluvium of the Itchen. The strata are, in fact, dipping westward 

 from this centre, as well as northward and southward, and the 

 pericline must die out between the valleys of the Itchen and the 

 Test. 



This being so, it is interesting to note the complete absence of 

 Clay-with-Elints on the Chalk-downs west of Winchester, for a 

 distance of about 5 miles ; and further, when tracts of it do set 

 in, they are disposed on the southern, western, and northern 

 slopes of these downs, exactly as if they were the remnants of a 

 sheet of Eocene clays which had overlain the Chalk and had been 

 included in the periclinal flexure. I have little doubt that they are 

 such remnants, modified by subaerial agencies and sunken somewhat 

 from their original position by solution of the underlying chalk. 

 It will be noticed that, at Braishfield, there is an outlier of Readiug 

 Beds which is equidistant from the main outcrop and from a small 

 patch of Clay-with-Elints at a higher level, leading on to the larger 

 tract of Earley Down. This ascends to over 500 feet, and a section 

 across the district here would appear as in PI. YI, fig. 2. 



Coming now to the country round Basingstoke (see Sheet 284), 

 I venture to assert that the positions occupied by the various tracts 

 of Clay-with-Elints in this area can only be satisfactorily explained 

 on the hypothesis of their having originally formed part of a 

 continuous sheet of material, which had been flexured together with 

 the Chalk. If all the isolated tracts are so regarded, it will be seen 

 that their connection across the intervening spaces would mantle 

 the surface of the Chalk, in such a manner as to accord with the 

 known or probable flexures, and with the position of the Eocene 

 outliers. In short, the hypothesis which I advocate furnishes a 



