X. A Sketch of the Geology of some parts of Hampshire and Dorsetshire.
By J.F. Berger, M.D.
Honorary Member of the Geological Society.
Although the chalk hills form the most striking feature of
Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, they do not occupy
the whole of the surface of those counties. Several other strata
or mineral beds there occur, the general arrangement of which it is
the purpose of this communication briefly to illustrate.
The chalk hills which appear on the south eastern-coast of the Isle of Wight traverse the interior of that district in a line nearly due west to the Needles; they are interrupted by the sea, and by the alluvial deposits on the eastern side of Studland Bay; but reappear at Corfe Castle, and on the coast at Lulworth, from which last place they may be observed passing towards Weymouth, still preserving their original direction, having left to the south of them nearly the whole of the Isle of Purbeck.
The breadth of this range of chalk is not very considerable, for the entire coast from Christchurch Bay to Poole lies to the North of it.
The dip of the strata varies from N.E. to S.E. but the point of the compass, towards which they all tend, is the east.[1]
- ↑ In the S.S.W. coast of the Isle of Wight, below St. Catherine's Sea-mark, the dip of the strata is E.N.E. In the southern coast called the Under Ulm the dip is N by N.E. in Freshwater Bay N. by N.E. towards the Needles at High Down, N.E. in Hampshire, near Alresford, S.S.E. at Kimeridge Bay, and generally along the coast of the Isle at Purbeck, E.N.E. in the Isle of Portland, E. by S.E.
