220 J. 8. GARDNER—DESCRIPTION AND 
and yellow sand, and, finally, much twisted black clay, the latter hold- 
ing the water whose mischief Lord Portman endeayours to remedy. 
A little eastward the pinkish clayey sand ceases, the lignitic sand 
passes into pure glass-sand, and there are thick shingle-beds at the 
top. For 200 yards further we find the lower half of the cliffs com- 
posed of white sand, the upper of orange sand; 90 yards further we 
meet with very regular layers of shingle and curiously twisted lig- 
nitic sand and clay at the base. The cliffs are now 100 feet high ; 
380 yards further on we reach the first really paleeontologically in- 
teresting spot. This is an obliquely bedded lignitic sand, some 16 
feet thick, containing very perfect and almost uncompressed limbs 
of all sizes of an American form of Cactus *, described by Heer from 
Bovey Tracey as Palmacites demonorops. ‘Together with this, and 
even more abundant, are branches of a Sequoia-like conifer 7. The 
upper part of the cliff is nearly pure white sand, the rest (the 
Bournemouth beds) being composed of greyish sand and clay in 
layers. It is singular that these Cactus and coniferous branches 
should have been deposited in this place in abundance, and only here, 
in company with fragments and branches of wood (riddled by Teredo) 
and sharks’ teeth. A few yards E. or W. we may search in vain for 
them ; andit is difficult to understand why they are so completely 
separated from the fruits and seeds elsewhere so abundant. 
120 yards beyond this are the Honeycomb Chines, the sides of 
which are upwards of 100 feet high and of most picturesque ap- 
pearance. The ridge separating them, deprived of its gravel capping, 
and formed of snow-white sand, looks quite Alpine with its sharply 
cut peaks and water-worn gullies, which may be magnified by 
imagination into chasms and crevasses. ‘The ribbon-like and netted 
surface, produced by weathering, produces a singular and striking 
effect. Lyell represents 3 chines at about the same spot; but it is 
hardly conceivable that any trace of those should remain at this 
day, as over fifty years have since elapsed. Last spring the face of 
the buttress separating the two fell away like an avalanche, which 
will take many a rough sea to remove. The production of these 
chines is marvellously rapid ;, a week’s rain sometimes goes far to pro- 
duce one where a few days before not even an indentation was visible. 
But their picturesque aspect is not their only charm to the geologist. 
The beds towards the base are full of interest. A section taken on 
the east side of the eastern chine shows, in descending order :— 
feet. 
20 Yellow sand and gravel. 
38 White sand. 
5 Whitish sand with lignitic matter. 
1to8 Dark reddish ash-coloured lignitie sand crowded with WNipadites, but 
almost without other recognizable fruits. 
6 Whitish and ash-coloured lignitic sand, with occasional fruits resembling 
Petrophiloides, Cucwmites, and Hightea of Bowerbank. 
2 White-sand matrix, black with rolled lignite. 
3 White sandy clay bored by Pholas. 
Sand 10 or 12 feet to beach. 
* Identified by Carruthers. t Sequoia Sternbergii ? 
