PREFACE.

v

During the progress of editing this work, I have communicatedseveral of the principal facts and many of the engraved plates todivers friends, and I am informed that several gentlemen wellqualified to observe and delineate these remarkable appearances,have within these last two years visited the Island for thatpurpose. Under these circumstances, and without the leastpretence to an exclusive right to publish on this subject, I hopeI shall be acquitted of unreasonable vanity, if I claim to myselfthe exclusive merit of having been the first observer of the highinclination of the strata of chalk, and the adjacent beds in the Isleof Wight, and the shattered state of the flints in that chalk : adiscovery which has led to so many and so important subsequentobservations. I must further observe, that as the Island , smallas it is, affords many rare and perhaps quite singular geologicalphenomena, it also is, from its very smallness and the nature ofits coasts, which present almost in every part an high and pre-cipitous front to the sea, peculiarly adapted for the investigationof its structure. It is no easy matter to obtain correct ideas ofthe strata even of countries of mines, and in those extensive tractswhere mines are not found, so few openings are made to anyconsiderable depth, that it is almost impossible to obtain thatsort of knowledge, which in the Isle of Wight and the coast ofDorsetshire seems to force itself upon the eye, and renders itquite unaccountable that it should so long have been entirelydisregarded.

I hough all the plates are referred to and described in thebody of the work, it appeared to me useful to give a sort of de-scriptive index to them in a detached form. This is not onlyconvenient, but will enable those who may look over the plates