Geologists ’ Association. 
129 
Geologists’ Association, Uniyersitt College, 5tk Jan., 1877. — 
William Carrüthers, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S., President, in the Cliair. 
A paper was read by J. Starkie Gardner, Esq., F.G.S., “ On the 
Bournemouth Leaf-Beds.” The author described the natiire of 
the operations in the Bournemouth Leaf-Beds which he has been 
carrying on for some years past, and explained that, having spent 
some time with the President, Mr. Carruthers, at Poole Harbour in 
the summer of 1876, he had been requested by him to give some 
account of this most interesting palaeobotanical locality to the 
members of the Geologists’ Association. Having given some general 
description of the locality, he said : If we examine these cliffs and 
banks, we find them composed of clays dark or white, or red and 
white mottled, of layers of coarse grey grit and of sands of every 
shade of red and yellow, white, and variegated. Often the sands 
have angular lumps of clay imbedded in them. The quarrying is 
mostly done in open pits, the clay being dug out perpendicularly 
with a long and narrow spade. Some of the deeper seams are 
mined, and a considerable depth is reached in Mr. Pike’s workings, 
and at Branksea similar pipe-clay is worked under the sea-level. 
Overlying the pipe-clay s we find anotlier series of deposits, which 
are not here quarried for use, but looked upon as refuse ; but near 
Bournemouth they are dug into in many places for the brick-earth 
contained in them. They are easily distinguished by the darker 
colour and more sandy nature of the clays. These drab clay-basins 
are of smaller extent, and are full of remains of decayed leaves, and 
have actual seams of coal in them, which is bumt by the villagers. 
In the sheltered bay of Studland we can see but little of the cliffs, 
as they are now mostly overgrown to the very beach. One is struck, 
however, by the coloured sands, which forcibly remind those who are 
familiär with them of the still more brilliant hues of the sands at 
Al um Bay. 
Being ferried across the inlet of Poole Harbour, and walking along 
the beach towards Bournemouth, we find the coast for the first mile 
composed of hills of blown sand, beyond which the cliffs we have 
been viewing from a distance rapidly rise. These cliffs are them- 
selves of rather monotonous appearance, being devoid of the 
brilliant colouring so conspicuous at Alum and Studland Bays. 
Their colour varies from buff to white, and from white to slate 
colour. We notice apparently endless successions of clays, sands, 
and grits deposited at different angles, and without any single bed 
being traceable for more than a few yards. The cliffs, preserving 
the same characters for a distance of four miles, extend to near 
Boscombe, where we notice a change in their composition. The clays 
are black and still more sandy, the upper parts of the cliffs are far 
less steep and seem composed of loose white sands and shingle with 
a thick capping of grave 1. 
Still further to the east these beds disappear beneath the sea in 
consequence of the general dip of the strata. The sand beds which 
follow, where they cap the cliffs, are recognized from a distance by 
their greater slope from the cliff shorewards, for they are so loosely 
DECADE II. — VOL. IV. — XO. IH. 9 
