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lectures on the " Geology of the Bournemouth Cliffs," which he 

 gave before the members of this Society on March 14th and 21st, 

 1908, and which are now in the Society's collection at Granville 

 Chambers. 



The Hampshire basin might be regarded as a spoon, the floor 

 and sides of which were of chalk, and its contents gravel, sand, 

 and mud, variously arranged and deposited at different times. The 

 agent which had laid down these contents had been a mighty river, 

 as large as the Ganges or Mississippi, of which all that remained 

 was now the little river Frome that flowed into Poole Harbour at 

 Wareham, and the Solent, which at one time had formed the 

 mouth of the river. Walking along the shores of Bournemouth 

 Bay from beyond Studland to Hengistbury Head, we passed a 

 magnificent section of the older contents of the Hampshire basin. 

 The oldest beds were those which lay directly on the chalk, and 

 were known as the Woolwich a.nd Reading beds. These were seen 

 resting upon the chalk beyond Studland. Next came the London 

 clay, near the same spot, and upon that again the Bagshot sands. 

 These last extended from Studland Bay to near Hengistbury Head. 

 They could be easily studied, as owing to their not lying quite 

 horizontally, but " dipping," as geologists say, very slightly to the 

 south-east, each bed, as one walked along the shore, came gradually 

 into view. These various strata all showed unmistakable evidences 

 of the manner of their deposition. Gravel composed of chalk 

 flints told of chalk strata denuded away and hard flints washing 

 about in river beds or on the sea shore, and then being laid down as 

 beds of gravel or shingle. Sand deposited in layers or irregularly 

 told of a river mouth where sandbanks were formed or of the 

 quieter waters beyond the bar where the sand could sink to the bottom 

 in beds. Layers and pockets of clay spoke of quiet reaches, pools, 

 and back-waters by the river banks, and where flood waters 

 occasionally extended, in the still pools of which the fine ooze held 

 in solution could sink gradually, forming beds of clay. 



But there was another and more certain method of ascertaining 

 the conditions under which such deposits were laid down, and that 

 was by their fossil contents. The beautiful leaves and fossil fruits, 

 so well known in Bournemouth, have been preserved in the clay 

 beds as described. Trunks of coniferous trees and masses of 

 teredo-bored wood are frequently found in the sandy beds. In 

 later times the climate changed ; the sea broke in, and the lovely 

 fossil shells of the Barton clay left their remains in beds above the 

 Bagshot sands in the eastern part of the basin. The floor of the 

 basin was gradually raised up in later times, when the Oligocene 

 beds were deposited, and after that the great earth movements set 

 in which raised up the chalk edges of the basin and formed the 

 hills bounding it north and south. The last great event in 

 geological history was the destruction of the southern boundary of 

 the basin by the breaking in of the sea through the chalk ridge 

 which formerly extended from the Needles to the Old Harry Rocks. 



Finally, we may ask from whence was the material derived 

 which now fills the basin ? The flints came, as stated before, from 



