Description and Correlation of the Bournemouh Beds. 75 



observations now made confirmed the views he had expressed on a 

 former occasion with regard to the basement-beds of the Cambrian 

 between Caernarvon and Bangor, where the deposits which rested 

 upon the granitoid rocks of Twt Hill were either a kind of arkose 

 or chiefly composed of quartz with a few pieces of mica-schist and 

 jasper ; but as we followed them a few miles to the 2T.E. we found 

 that the quartz had got pounded into smaller grains, and the larger 

 pebbles were chiefly of felsite, which here formed the shore, while 

 further towards Bangor fragments of the still higher Bangor volcanic 

 series helped to make up the Cambrian shingle-beach. 



3. "Description and Correlation of the Bournemouth Beds. — 

 Part II. Lower or Freshwater iSeries." By J. S. Gardner, Esq., 

 F.G.S. 



This was in continuation of a former paper by the author (Q. J. 

 G. S. vol. xxxv. p. 209). The beds described are exposed east and 

 west of Bournemouth and near Poole harbour, over a distance of 

 about four miles. The author referred them to the Middle Bagshot, 

 and stated that they are distingnished from the Lower Bagshot by 

 the absence of the extensive pipe-clay deposits and the presence of 

 brick-earths, and from the overlying beds by the absence of flints. 

 They reach their extreme limit in the western area of the London 

 basin, and are represented by the lignitic beds 19-24 of Prof. Prest- 

 wich's section. Lignites can be traced partly across the bay. The 

 cliffs present an oblique section across a delta divisible roughly into 

 four masses, one of which, from its confused bedding and want of 

 fossils, is supposed to have been formed by the silting-up of the main 

 channel. The total thickness of the series was estimated at 600 to 

 700 feet. The inferences drawn by the author were as follows : — 

 1. from the beds cut through showing a steep side to the west, 

 that the river flowed from that direction ; 2. from the absence of 

 boulders or coarse sediment, that the area was flat ; 3. from the 

 absence of lignite, that there were catchment basins ; 4. from the 

 absence of flint and the quartzose nature of the beds, that no chalk 

 escarpments were cut through, and that the deposits came from a 

 granitic area ; and 5. from the presence of wood bored by Teredo 

 that the beds belong to the lower part of the river in proximity to 

 ticlal water. 



The flora was stated to be confined to local patches of clay. Those 

 at the western end of the section are very rich, and distinguished 

 from the rest by absence of palms and rarity of ferns. The beds 

 near Bournemouth are still richer and very distinct ; those east of 

 Bournemouth are characterized by Eucalypti, Aroids, tm&A}-aucari<(>; 

 and those at the western end of the section by abundant Polypo- 

 diacese. It is remarkable that nearly every patch contains a flora 

 almost peculiar to it ; but the flora as a whole seems to pass upward 

 to the Oligocene, but not down to the Lower Bagshot. 



