of the Hampshire Tertiary District. 
131 
when it shall have been longer under cultivation, there can be 
no doubt that it will bear wheat. 
The soft chalk of Bere and Wool is described as producing 
very different results on the soils of the lower and middle 
eocenes. On the former (that is, on the London and plastic 
beds), and on the red land (that is, the loams of the warp-drift 
before mentioned), it is used with great advantage at the rate of 
from 20 to 30 tons to the acre. The farmers on those soils say 
they cannot grow good corn without it. But on the heath-land 
— tliat is, the sands of the middle eocenes, or Bagshot series — it 
is alleged that it does injury, unless used in very small quan- 
tities, " spread like gold-dust " — which, translated into more 
precise language, means, not more than G tons to the acre. The 
effect of larger dressings in preventing the anbury in turnips is 
admitted ; but it is alleged that, after such dressings, the corn 
turns yellow and spindly, and does not come into ear, and that 
these consequences endure for years. This fact is too generally 
asserted not to have some foundation. Its cause, whether che- 
mical or mechanical, whether inherent in the chalk or in the 
soil, or arising from a stinted application of organic manures, is 
an interesting subject for chemical investigation, on which 
analysis of the soil, of the chalk, and of the plant thus affected, 
might perhajis throw some light. 
In working the china clay of the Lower Bagshots, vast quan- 
tities of clay are thrown back into the pits as refuse, either be- 
cause of the presence of a small portion of sand, or because they 
contain metallic salts and oxides, which prevent the clay from 
burning of a pure white colour. To say nothing of the uses to 
which this refuse clay might be applied, in the manufacture of 
bricks, tiles, and draining-pipes, it is well worthy of a trial as a 
dressing for the light soils which abound in the neighbourhood. 
Mr. Pike, who works one of the pits near Corfe Castle, in- 
formed me that some specimens which be sent to a manufacturing 
chemist were found by analysis to contain a considerable quan- 
tity of potash.* 
The water which has filtered through the spoil-banks of these 
clay-pits is highly charged with sulphates, and, from the pre- 
sence of potash, was formerly used for the manufacture of alum. 
* Colonel Waugh has kindly permitted me to publish the accompanying analysis, 
by Professor Way, of some of the clay of Brauksea Island, in Poole harbour, from 
the Lower Bagshot strata (June, 1854) : — 
White Clay. Black Clay. 
Silica 65*49 72-23 
Alumina 21-28 23-25 
Oxides of iron 1-26 2-54 
Alkalies and alkaline earths . . . 7-25 1-78 
Sulphate of lime 4-72 0-00 
K 2 
