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A description of the principal picturesque beauties, antiquities, and geological phoenomena, of the Isle of Wight / by ... Henry C. Englefield ... ; with additional observations on the strata of the Island, and their continuation in the adjacent parts of Dorsetshire, by Thomas Webster ... ; illustrated by maps and numerous engravings by W. and G. Cooke, from original drawings by ... H. Englefield and T. Webster
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COAST FROM BRAD1NG TO SANDOWN.

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strata consist of numerous alternations of clay and sand, the bednext to the chalk being of a deep red colour. The faces of thesecliffs are perpendicular; but they are cut down and divided intoseveral detached parts, by gullies probably worn by the waterwhich comes down in the winter season. The description whichyou gave me of these cliffs was so precise, and agreed so wellwith what I observed, that I have little farther to add respectingthem, except it be worth while to notice, that in one place thestrata curved a little towards the top of the cliff; and that inother parts, they presented also the section of a horizontal bed ofgravel of seven or eight feet thick, which lay upon the abruptends of the vertical strata.

I now followed these vertical cliffs northwards on the beach,until I came to the horizontal strata. This calcareous bed, whichI had already seen at Bembridge ledge, is at that place nearlyhorizontal ; but when it approaches within a hundred yards ofthe vertical clay cliffs, it rises towards them ; and when very near,turns upwards, forming a curve, which continues until as high asthe top of the clay, and is then suddenly broken off.

At the exact point of union between the clay and the rock, thespot being much overgrown with bushes, it is not easy to tracethe direction of the clay strata with certainty ; neither can it beobserved inland, since the ground is cultivated, and the upperpart of the rock is much decomposed. If the clay, however, benot vertical under the curved part of the calcareous stratum, it isProbably highly inclined, dipping to the north.

Of this curious junction of strata I made the sketch (Plate XV.)^rhich exhibits the vertical clay alternating with sand, and thecurved rock resting upon them. The stratum over the horizontal