NORMAN UPPER GREENSAND OF ISLE OF WIGHT. 509 



has been found, but it is difficult to determine from its bad state of 

 preservation. 



I have now enumerated ten separate periods in which animal life, 

 for the most part of distinct species, existed, during the times of the 

 several deposits of coal-beds and ironstones from the period of the 

 mountain-limestone up to the Pennant rock, and I have no doubt that 

 more continuous research will prove that we must not limit too 

 strictly our line of demarcation. 



descriptions' of the section oe the upper green- 

 sand AT THE UNDERCLIFE, IN THE ISLE OE WIGHT. 



Ey Me. Maek W. Normait. 



{Cmtinued from page VO.) 



The next division, 8th, consists of a bed of fawn-coloured sandstone 

 cf about ten feet in thickness, containing nodules of rag, with 

 Fee fines, Terehratulce, Rliynchonellcd, Sfe., in the lower portion, which, 

 owing to its softness and looseness of texture, the weather wears 

 away, leaving the shells finely exposed. It is chiefly owing to such 

 excavation of this bed, by the combined influence of the elements, 

 that those great falls of the superincumbent masses have taken place at 

 intervals along the line of the Undercliff, many such "founders" having 

 happened within the memory of residents, and others being likely to 

 occur constantly from this hard and solid mass of strata resting on an 

 insecure foundation, the eff'ects of which are still farther increased by 

 the presence of the Gault below. 



But a few years back a large mass near Blackgang thus assumed such 

 a dangerous and threatening attitude, by the lower part of it being so 

 much worn away, that the authorities blew it down with gunpowder. 

 Many thousand tons of rock and delris were thus thrown down, com- 

 pletely blocking up and destroying the original road ; one huge mass 

 still stands close to the road, as large and as high as a good-sized 

 cottage. 



* Gore Cliff, below which occurred the great landslip, in the month of February, 

 1798, when, during a severe frost, an entire tract of land, on which was a farm, 

 called Pitlands, became separated from the Clift", and descended towards the sea, 

 burying the farm-house and carrying with it in its progress rocks, trees, and 



