Vol. 62.] THE CLAY-WITH-FUNTS. 155 



ridge of the Chalk-escarpment : these seem to occur at levels which 

 would have been occupied by a continuation of the Eocene deposits 

 westward from Farnham and Crondall through the two outliers of 

 Beading Beds west of the latter place. A section drawn through 

 these two outliers and through the patches of Clay-with-Flints 

 north and south of them, shows that the latter occupy positions 

 which must previously have been held by the Beading Beds (see 

 the accompanying text-figure, p. 154). 



Of the area in Sheet 300 to the south of that described above, it 

 is unnecessary to give much detail. Its chief features in relation 

 to my subject are as follows : — 



1. The large continuous sheet of Clay-with-Flints which covers the eastern 



part of the Upper Chalk-plateau, from which the ground slopes east- 

 wards to the Wealden area. 



2. The existence of a small outlier of Eeading Beds, partly surrounded 



by Clay-with-Flints, at Stratton in the north-eastern corner of the 

 district. 



3. The entire absence of Clay-with-Flints in the south-eastern corner of 



the district, which seems to be traversed by a flexure connecting the 

 Winchester pericline with the Meon-and-Petersfield anticline. 



The extensive tract of Clay-with-Flints on the high plateau 

 (above 500 feet), which forms the eastern border of the Upper 

 Chalk-area, has a length of 12 miles from south to north, and is a 

 continuation of that mapped to the north in Sheet 284. It is of very 

 irregular shape, owing to the branching system of valleys by which 

 it is deeply incised, and is thus interesting as an illustration of the 

 manner in which similar large wide-spreading tracts have been cut 

 up into isolated patches, and the way in which such patches come 

 to occupy different levels on a sloping surface of Chalk. 



This irregular tract of Clay-with-Flints helps us to look back 

 to a time, somewhere between the Miocene Period and the Glacial 

 Epoch, when the greater part of the Chalk-area between the present 

 boundaries of the London and Hampshire Basins was covered by a 

 mantle of this material, or of the deposits from which it has been 

 derived. 



The outlier of Beading Beds on the north-west takes us a step 

 farther, and indicates one at least of the deposits out of which the 

 Clay-with-Flints has been formed. This outlier lies just above the 

 contour of 300 feet, and the surrounding patches of Clay-with- 

 Flints are at about the same level, that is, from 300 to 350 feet. The 

 remarkable fact of its occurrence has already been commented upon, 

 but its importance can hardly be exaggerated, because it lies about 

 midway between the London and Hampshire Basins, and because 

 it proves that the Eocene Beds were here carried down to a com- 

 paratively low level in the geanticline, presumably by post-Eocene 

 re-adjustments. 



As the level at which Clay-with-Flints is found rises from 

 Stratton northward, eastward, and southward, I suspect that the 

 Eocene outlier marks the site of a periclinal basin or ' cymboid,' 

 which probably extends for several miles westward, through 



