530 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 8, 
on the line of strike of the general surface of the country, will 
illustrate its tabular character and the way in which the rivers in- 
tersect it. The extension inland of the tableland is best seen on 
the east of the Avon, where it can be followed from the coast 
northwards for upwards of twenty miles to a grayel-capped escarp- 
ment, 420 feet above the sea, and 200 feet above the ground imme- 
diately to the northward, extending from Downton Common to 
Bramshaw. It is easy to see that the high plains, such as Picked 
Plain, Bratley Plain, and Ocknell Plain, although separated by 
deep valleys or “‘ bottoms,” form parts of one continuous tableland, 
and nowhere is this more evident than near the highest part be- 
tween Downton, Fordingbridge, and Bramshaw. The eye there 
ranges over an extensive plateau curiously intersected by valleys 
100 to 150 feet deep, by which the tabular appearance of the surface 
is, however, but little affected. 
Section No. 3 commences at the coast near High Chiff, two miles 
east of the mouth of the Avon, where the cliff is 96 feet high, and 
is capped with 18 feet of gravel, and extends by two lines branch- 
ing at Bratley Plain, to the northern escarpment near Bramshaw 
Telegraph, and at Blackbush Plain, respectively 419 feet and 397 feet 
above the sea. From the coast to the escarpment the ground has 
a uniform inclination of about 20 feet per mile, or one-fifth of a 
degree with the horizon. The surface is generally covered with 
gravel, which appears to thicken as the ground drops towards the 
valleys; the sides of the valleys are free from gravel, and the 
bottoms contain a gravel much mixed with locally derived clay and 
marl, and distinct from that covering the plains. 
The regularity of the surface of the plains, where they are 
not cut up by streams, is very remarkable, more so on the ground 
than would perhaps appear from some of the sections, in which 
the vertical heights being necessarily greatly exaggerated, every 
irregularity is magnified to about thirteen times its natural 
scale. 
To the westward of the Avon, the triangular tableland between 
Christchurch, Wimborne, and Poole is cut off on the north by the 
Stour valley. It varies in height from 100 feet near the coast to 
190 feet towards Wimborne, and sections of the gravel covering it 
are seen along the coast, in the railway-cutting between Christ- 
church and Bournemouth, in the cutting south of Wimborne, and in 
numerous gravel-pits. On the north of the Stour at Wimborne, Canon 
Hill and Cole Hill are capped with gravels at a level correspond- 
ing to those of the plains to the south ; ‘and still more inland, Chalbury 
Hall and Pistil Hill are covered with flint-gravel at greater eleva- 
tions. The latter, a detached flat-topped hill, 320 feet above the sea, 
corresponds exactly in level with the plain on the opposite side of 
the Avon, and appears to be the remnant of a sloping tableland, of 
which the mass has undergone destruction by the action of the 
Stour, Blackwater, and Avon. Generally the country near the 
confluence of these rivers is at a much lower level than the high 
plains, ranging from 30 to 80 feet above the sea, or about 30 feet. 
