384 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS 
Dec. 17. 
The President in the chair. 
Hutches Tiaver, Esq. of Upper Harley Street, was elected 
a member of the Society. 
The continuation of Mr. Webster’s paper on the upper strata 
of the S. E. part of England, was read— 
This part of Mr. Webster's paper begins by a description of 
the marine deposit which covers the lower freshwater formation 
in. the Isle of Wight. The place where it may be studied to 
most advantage is Headen, near Alum bay. It here appears 
about half way up the cliff, is about 36 feet thisk, and dips a 
few degrees to the north. The substance composing the prin- 
cipal part of the bed, is a pale greenish marl filled with shells, 
chiefly, cytherea, and oysters, in a very perfect state of pre- 
tervaiioo* The extensive stratum containing shells, which 
appears at Woolwich, and in many other parts of the London 
basin south of the Thames, are also considered by Mr. Webster 
as portions of the npper marine formation. Beds containing 
similar fossils occur in the Paris basin, covering the gyp- 
sum and gypseous marls of the lower freshwater formation. 
The above strata in the Paris basin are covered by very 
extensive and thick beds of a pure sand, sometimes loose, 
sometimes concreted : with which is also connected that 
peculiar and valuable mineral known by the name of meuliere, 
or burr-stone. In the Isle of Wight there is nothing to cor- 
respond with these important beds, except a thin layer of sand ; 
but in the counties round London occurs in detached blocks, 
a very pure siliceous sandstone, called the grey -weathers, 
which has been largely employed in architecture, and which 
is conjectured by Mr. Webster to be of cotemporanedus origin 
with the French sandstone. 
Tha 
