30 J. PEESTWICH ON THE QUATEKNAEY PHENOMENA 



Neale subsequently sent to the Society other bones, and amongst them 

 the tooth of an elephant. 



About twelve years ago, in making the deep dry moat (60 to 

 70 feet deep) on the south side of the Verne Fort, numerous large 

 fissures, some open at bottom but closed at top, and some entirely 

 filled with debris, were met with, traversing the Portland stone in a 

 direction nearly north and south ; and in the open ones, amongst 

 a talus of broken fragments of rock, there were found * numerous 

 bones belonging to wild boar (a very large species), ox (a large 

 species), deer, horse, wolf, slieep, and several small animals. In 

 addition to these there were in the collection, when I visited it, a 

 skull and bones of red deer, a metacarpal bone of Oervus megaceros (?), 

 skull of Bos longifrons, and skull of dog. All the bones are 

 rather light, white, and do not adhere to the tongue. There is 

 reason to believe that they are all of comparatively recent date, 

 and have fallen into the crevices while they were open to the 

 surface. Mr. Damon also notices the occurrence of gravel with 

 teeth and bones of the mammoth at Padipole, and of a drift with 

 land and marine shells in the cliff, 10 to 12 feet above high water- 

 mark, at the mouth of the Preston valley f. 



This, I believe, embraces all the information we have on the 

 superficial deposits of this district. I had visited Portland in 1863, 

 when, in consequence of some extensive quarrying which had been 

 temporarily carried on to the west side of the Bill, some remarkable 

 sections of the raised beach, varying considerably from the better- 

 known portions on the east side, had then been recently laid open. 

 A visit I made last autumn of a few weeks to Weymouth has enabled 

 me to examine it more in detail, and to notice other phenomena 

 connected with the Quaternary deposits, which I think of sufficient 

 interest to lay before the Society. 



The general features of the district are well known. The bold 

 chalk escarpment, 500 to 600 feet in height, of the Isle of Purbeck, 

 ranges to the coast at Lulworth, passes westward, four miles 

 north of Weymouth, to near the sea at Abbotsbury, where it turns in- 

 land and northward. A lower undulating triangular tract of Jurassic 

 strata stretches from the base of the last half of this line southward 

 to Portland (see Map, PI. I.). At a short distance from its southern 

 extremity stands Weymouth. None of this tract rises higher than 

 from 250 to 300 feet, while near Weymouth the hills are generally 

 not more than from 50 to 100 feet in height, and the narrow neck 

 of land connecting Portland with the mainland would be on the sea- 

 level, were it not for the Chesil beach, which rests on it and rises 

 40 feet above that level. At the end of the narrow neck of land 

 the Isle of Portland rises abruptly to the height of 500 feet at the 

 Verne, from which point it forms a gradual incline to the Bill, a 

 distance of four miles, where the cliff ends with a height of 25 feet. 



* Damon, op. cit. p. 130. 



f This latter I could not find. It may have been removed by the wear of the 

 cliff- Mr. Osmond Fisher, however, informs me that elephant-remains have 

 been found at low water on the shore at Preston. 



