454 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
westward of the Needles, will not doubt but that the two promontories 
were once united, forming a rocky neck of land from Dorset to the 
Needles. This chain of chalk mi,2:ht, or might not, be so cleft in twain as 
to allow the rivers of Dorset and Wilts, to find a passage through them to 
the main ocean. My opinion, however, is that they had no such outlet, 
but that, at that far distant period, the entire drainage of more than two 
counties, embracing the rivers that join the sea at Poole and Christchurch, 
flowed through what is now called Christchurch Bay, down the Solent, and 
joined the sea at Spithead. 
According to this theory, the Solent was at that time an estuary some- 
what like the Southampton Water, having but one opening to the British 
Channel ; but of so much more importance than the latter as it was fed by 
a vastly greater flow of fresh water ; and it further supposes that the 
bed of the Solent was scooped out originally by a river, which from the 
extent of its drainage one may guess to have been little inferior to the 
Thames or the HumlDer. And this opinion acquires countenance from the 
circumstance that it accounts, in a most satisfactory way, for the equality 
of depth and breadth in the Solent Sea. Of course, according to this view, 
this sea would lose its original condition as an estuary at the time when 
the British Channel had so far made a breach through the chain of rocks 
connecting the Isle of Wight with Dorsetshire as to give an opening into 
itself for the Dorsetshire rivers, somewhere opposite to the town of Christ- 
church. From that time forth the Solent would become what it is at pre- 
sent, losing its character as an estuary, and assuming that of a long narrow 
sea. And at the same period, of course, the Isle of Wight would part with 
its peninsular character, and be severed from the mainland, but at a point 
far apart from that at which the severance is usually supposed to have 
taken place. The distant period at which such changes took place it would 
be hopeless to guess at, amid the dimness of the data on which calculations 
could be founded. It could not be less, however, than many thousands of 
years, seeing that since that time, the British Channel has not only made 
a broad breach of twenty miles through a chain of slowly yielding rocks, 
but has also pushed its way gradually across the broad extent of the Poole 
and Christchurch Bays. 
In conclusion, I would observe, that if your correspondent at Lyming- 
ton simply put his question about the separation of the Isle of Wight as 
an archaeological inquiry, I fear he will consider my answer to it as some- 
what dreamy. But I am confident, if he and others who may honour me 
with a careful perusal of my observations, are tolerably acquainted with 
the geology of the neighbourhood, and have had their minds disciplined 
for realizing the operations of nature on a large scale and through length- 
ened periods of time, they will perceive in this paper opinions indicative of 
more than novelty, having, as I believe, very important geological facts 
to uphold them. Yours, etc., 
W. Fox. 
Brixton, Isle of Wight, Nov. 8. 
TracTcs, Trails, and Imprints. 
Deae Sie, — At nearly the same time, probably, when t was pointing out 
the desirability of careful drawings and casts being made of the tracks 
and trails of living annelids, mollusks, insects, etc. (' Geologist,' No. 52, 
138, April, 1862), for the guidance of the palaeontologist in decipher- 
