MIDDLE CHALK—KENT, 
371 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE MIDDLE CHALK IN KENT. 
■ I 1 
1. The Coast Section. 
General Description. 
As in the case of the Lower Chalk, we shall commence our de¬ 
scription of the Middle Chalk with the section exposed in the Kentish 
cliffs near Dover, and once more we must refer to the excellent 
description of the chalk of these cliffs by W. Phillips in 1818, and 
to Mr. Whitaker’s supplementary account in 1872. Those of 
Phillips’s divisions now included in the Middle Chalk are as follow : — 
Bed b. —Chalk with interspersed flints [lower part only]. 
Bed c.—Chalk with few flints, 130 feet thick. 
Bed d. — Chalk without flints, but containing numerous thin leds of 
organic remains [? nodules] 90 feet. 
He describes Bed “d ” as yellowish and hard, but does not mention 
that the lowest part is harder than the upper ; he does, however, 
say that the “ thin beds of organic matter are nearly in contact 
in the lower part of the stratum, and are more separate in the upper 
part of it,” a remark which clearly applies to the layers of yellowish 
nodular lumps. He also notes the quantity of shell fragments 
which are present—“a large proportion of them being varieties of 
the striated shell or Inoceramus.” He also mentions that “ Am¬ 
monites from 12 to 18 inches in diameter are not uncommon.” 
Mr. Whitaker notes that “ this division, from its hardness, causes 
the overhanging profile at the lower part of Shakespeare’s Cliff, * 
the underlying softer chalk being worn away from below it by the 
sea ”; and he mentions that nearer Folkestone this lower massive 
part often falls in large blocks. This part represents the Melbourn 
Bock and Phillips’s Bed “ d ” practically coincides with the modern 
zone of Rhytichonella Cuvieri, but the thickness given is about 
.20 feet too much. 
Bed “ c,” described by Phillips as soft white chalk, is the Terc- 
bratulina zone, and it is a curious fact that when Mr. W. Hill 
studied the Middle Chalk of Dover in 1886 he placed its upper 
limit at exactly the same horizon, though he had not then read 
Phillips’s account. In that account f it is stated that the “ chalk 
* Since Mr. Whitaker wrote, this portion of the cliff has fallen and no 
longer overhangs, though in time the erosion of the waves will doubtless 
produce a similar conformation. 
t See Couybeare and Phillips, Geology of England and Wales; p. 99. 
4219. Bb 
