1870.] CcODRINGION—HAMPSHIRE AND ISLE-OF-WIGHT GRAVELS. 541 
distance of the coast, when they begin to fall more and more rapidly 
through a ravine, which has been cut out in the bottom of a valley 
corresponding in level and cross section, and continuous with that 
in which the stream flows before it enters the ravine. The in- 
creased rate of fall towards the sea is opposed to the general tendency 
of streams to fall less as they near their outfall, and it seems to 
point to a somewhat sudden change in the conditions under which 
the streams flowed. Such a change would result if the streams which 
were tributaries of a river flowing to the Solent by Freshwater had 
been provided with new outfalls by the cutting back of the coast- 
line, until the river and its branches were intersected while still 
flowing at a considerable height above the sea. If this be the true 
explanation of the occurrence of the chines at the back of the Isle of 
Wight, it would seem io be a fair inference that where chines, or 
bunnies, are found, a similar change in the outfall of the streams 
has taken place. 
(e) The section of gravel exhibited in the cliff round Foreland 
Point, at the eastern extremity of the Isle of Wight, seems to deserve 
a more detailed description than it has hitherto received, although 
it has been often mentioned* in notices of the superficial deposits of 
the neighbouring country. 
Fig. 12 (Pl. XX XVII.) represents the section exposed in the coast- 
line from Whitecliff Bay, round the headland. The main mass of gra- 
vel consists of rounded chalk-flints, imbedded in sand and distinctly 
stratified in layers of pebbles of assorted sizes, dipping slightly 
northward. ‘The flints, though well rounded, have not the finish of 
the pebbles in tertiary pebble-beds, and the structure shows it to be 
a beach-deposit. Seams of pure sand overlie bands of pebbles as 
large as oranges, and layers of pebbles stained a dark red are 
succeeded sharply by bands of white pebbles. Pieces of sarsen- 
stone, and fragments of chert and sandstone from beds below the 
chalk, are occasionally met with. The thickness is between 30 and 
40 feet, extending from a few feet above high-water mark to 60 feet 
above the mean sea-level. The general colour is a red-brown, and 
it is only near the overlying brick-earth that there is any admixture 
of clay or loam. 
No organic remains of any sort have been found in this gravel. 
In structure it is exactly like a beach-deposit, and in many respects 
unlike the gravel covering the high ground of the north of the 
island and the mainland. 
Gravel of a similar character is said, by Mr. Godwin-Austen +, to 
occur at St. Helens, and is supposed by that gentleman to be a 
continuation of the Foreland bed. A deposit of gravel on the shore 
to the east of Ryde is described by Mr. Bristow as consisting of 
“white rounded flint-pebbles in brown clay, precisely similar to 
* Forbes’s Memoir, p.6; Memoir of the Geological Survey of the Isle of 
Wight. p. 103; Godwin-Austen, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xi. p. 116; Prest- 
wich, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe. vol. xv. p. 215. 
+ Forbes’s Memoir on the Fluviomarine Tertiaries of the Isle of Wight, p. 7. 
{ Memoirs of the Geological Survey of the Isle of Wight, p. 102. 
