William Whitaker

On the “Lower London Tertiaries” of Kent

From what has been said above, and from a study of the sections in Plate XXII., we may gather the following facts amongst others:— 1. That the base-bed (a) is the only constant part of the Thanet Beds. 2. That the higher and fossil-bearing parts of that series (d, e) occur only in the east, which partly explains why it is often very hard to separate the Thanet Beds from the overlying series in the eastern part of Kent, whilst the division is well-marked westward; and that the unfossiliferous sand (c) thins out on the east, so that the Thanet Beds near Canterbury may be a different thing from the Thanet Beds between London and Rochester. 3. That the bottom-bed (1) is also constant, except in the far east. 4. That above this last there is always a sand (2), a pebble-bed (2 a), or a mottled clay (2 b), which replace one another. 5. That one very thin bed (3) in the middle of the Woolwich Series seems to occur right through Kent, at all events through the eastern division. 6. That the higher and estuarine members (4, 5) of the same series occur only in the western and central parts of the county. 7. That the pebbles (β) at the bottom of the Oldhaven Beds (except at Upnor, where there is a little sand (α) below) are constant, being, however, locally replaced by brown iron-ore in some places near Canterbury. 8. That in West Kent this series lies irregular on that below, whilst in the

On the Succession of Beds in the “New Red” on the South Coast of Devon, and on the Locality of a New Specimen of Hyperodapedon

The following account of the successive beds that are shown in the “New Red” cliffs of South Devon, is from notes taken during a holiday-walk along that coast last September, and it has been drawn up at the request of Prof. Huxley, in order to mark the stratigraphical place of the Hyperodapedon jaw from near Budleigh Salterton. I believe that the only paper Which treats of the order of these beds is a full report of two lectures by Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S.* To this I refer the reader for a more detailed account of the composition of the various “red rocks.” Owing to the dip, lower and lower beds rise to the surface southwestward, so that an almost continuous section is given. The occurrence of the uppermost part of the “New Red” near the eastern boundary of the county, and its passage upwards into the Lias, have been noticed by Sir H. De la Beche †, and more fully by Mr. Pengelly‡; but the cliffs here are so much hidden by fallen masses, that little is to be seen below the “White Lias” until we pass to the west of the great landslip of 1839 at Dowlands. The cliff is then clearer, and shows a set of evenly-bedded greenish clays, with black shales, stone-beds, and layers of hard marl (Rhætic Beds). Here Mr. Pengelly found the well-known bone-bed. Lower down some of the layers of clay have a reddish colour; and there is a passage downwards into “New Red” marl,

On the Chalk of the Isle of Thanet

Introduction.—Besides Professor Morriss account of the faults in Pegwell Bay* the only note on the Chalk of the Isle of Thanet that I can find is by the late Rev. W. D. Conybeare, who says,“The north- eastern cape, called the North Foreland, forms the loftiest point (of the cliffs)* * * between this point and Margate the lowest strata are exhibited, the Chalk without flints making its appearance: hence the strata gradually decline, though under an imperceptible angle, towards the south-west, in which direction the upper beds of the Chalk sink and disappear beneath the more recent formations†.” Unfortunately this, which, as far as I know, has never been contradicted, is in groat part the reverse of the truth, as I found whilst carrying on the Geological Survey in East Kent in 1863; for there is no “Chalk-without-flints” in the island, the comparatively flintless Chalk of Margate is above the more flinty Chalk of Broadstairs, and the beds rise southwards at first, toward the middle part of the island, though they afterwards sink again further in the same direction: the island is in fact a very flat arch (or perhaps the half of a dome, of which the eastern part has been worn away by the sea), as shown by the section. The late Mr. P. J. Martin noted the fact of the Isle of Thanet being an elevated mass of the Chalk*. The higher division, or, as it may fitly be called, The Margate Chalk, contains but a very

On the Cliff-sections of the Tertiary beds West of Dieppe in Normandy, and at Newhaven in Sussex

The notes from which this paper is made were taken in the summer of 1886. The two sections described are interesting as showing the spread of beds that, but for them, would be thought to occur only in the south-eastern part of the London Basin; and I believe that no detailed description of the French one has been published, whilst the English one has been enlarged since the time of its latest description.

On some Well-Sections in Suffolk

Some 470 well-sections in Suffolk were noticed in thirteen Geological Survey Memoirs up to the year 1893. Many of these were shallow, but many were of considerable depth. Few of the accounts had been published before. Two years later, seventeen fresh sections were described in a paper on some Suffolk well-sections, and since then four others have been noticed in various publications. As notes of thirty-one more have accumulated; as there is no opening for the printing of these, either in a Survey Memoir or in the publication of a local society (for there is no such publication); and as some of them have points of considerable geological interest, it is hoped that I may be forgiven for bringing matters of local detail (such as the following sections of twenty borings) before the Geological Society, which, as a rule, is hardly the proper place for them. Though ready to take a somewhat extended view of a remark made by a former President, that papers of local character would find a more appropriate birth near the place of their conception, yet I think it better that such papers (at all events my own) should be born rather than strangled in embryo. The object of this paper is to show how greatly our knowledge may be added to by wells or borings, and how sometimes these give results that could not have been expected. Woodbridge If there is a place in Eastern Suffolk where one might reasonably expect to be able

On the Chalk of the Southern Part of Dorset and Devon

As my rambles through Dorset and Devon (in 1867–68) were made from east to west, the same course will be followed in transcribing my notes, a course that will also have the advantage of starting from the point nearest to the Isle of Wight, the Chalk of which has been described in a paper of which this may be taken as a continuation†. At the northern side of Swanage Bay, where the rocks are almost vertical, the Upper Greensand, consisting of green-grey sand with layers of nodular stones, is capped by evenly bedded Chalk Marl, made up of alternations of lighter-coloured thicker and harder beds, with darker thinner and softer, and forming a sort of ridge-and-furrow foreshore, as in the Isle of Wight. The Chalk Marl has a thick grey bed at top, and seems to be about 60 feet thick. It is succeeded by hard bedded Chalk without flints, which again is soon succeeded by a thin layer of the Chalk-rock, hard, with the usual irregular-shaped green-coated nodular lumps (chiefly at the top) and iron-pyrites. Above this is Chalk that weather to a rough surface, and higher up contains flints. Further east, at the highest part of the cliff, the Chalk is less rough, and not so full of flints as in the Isle of Wight. I was not able to get at the section between Ballard Hole and the Foreland ; but enough has been already written on that part‡. I may remark, however, that two of the

On the Chalk of the Isle of Wight

The following notes were made during holiday rambles in the autumn of the years 1863 and 1864, and as some of them seem to throw a little light on a formation the details of which have been hitherto somewhat neglected, I trust that they may be not unacceptable to the Society. The divisions of the Chalk in the Isle of Wight are well enough known, but nevertheless it will be as well to mention them here before giving the details as to the line of demarcation between the first two, which is the special object of this paper. They are— White Chalk with flints, many hundred feet thick (1200 feet or more?). White Chalk without flints, about 200 feet? Chalk-marl, 60 or 80 feet? The “Chloritic Marl,” which my friend and colleague, Mr. Bristow, classes as the bottom part of the Chalk ‡, I should rather look on as belonging to the Upper Greensand; for it seems to me to be the representative of the clayey greensand that forms the upper part of the latter formation in Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, &c.*; and in taking this view I follow the late Professor E. Forbes and Captain Ibbetson †, although the last-named observer has also spoken of the Chloritic Marl as separating the Chalk-marl from the Upper Greensand, as if he doubted to which formation to refer it, notwithstanding that in the same paper he correlates it with the greensand of Surrey ‡. I shall not treat

On the Chalk of Buckinghamshire, and on the Totternhoe Stone

I know of but two short notices of the Totternhoe stone, and the older of these is merely to the effect that “the indurated Chalk Marle is extensively quarried at Totternhoe, in Bedfordshire*.” Prof. J. Phillips, however, has been led to class this stone and the accompanying marl with the Upper Greensand, his words being as follows:—“In Bedfordshire the Chalk Marl produces a bed of siliceous chalky stone, which may probably be analogous to the firestone of Mesterham (Merstham), in Surrey, which is determined to belong to the Upper Greensand.”* * * * * “It is easy to understand how so variable a mass of sand (the Upper Greensand) placed immediately below the Chalk, and clearly in many places graduating into that calcareous rock, should in several instances become so cretaceous as to be hardly distinguishable from the Chalk itself. This happens in Bedfordshire, where the Tattenhoe (Tottenhoe†) stone appears to be the representative of the Upper Greensand‡. I would remark that the name “Chalk-marl” is, I believe, used strictly for the lowest and more clayey part of the Chalk, and therefore that bed can hardly be analogous to the Upper Greensand which occurs beneath it. The mapping of the Upper Greensand in Buckinghamshire gave much trouble to the Geological Survey, and it was only after repeated visits, by the help of fresh sections, and from a knowledge of a great length of country along the foot of the Chalk ridge, that the difficulty was cleared up, happily, too, without

On some Borings in Kent: a Contribution to the Deep-seated Geology of the London Basin

It will be of interest therefore to give a full account of these borings, of which only short notices have yet appeared, and to review the bearing that the result of the later one has on our knowledge of the underground formations of the London Basin. The borings are about 210 yards westward of the Factory Basin, in what was, until the extension of the docks was made, the marsh on the southern side of the former St. Marys Creek, that creek having also been included in the new dockyard. The surface of the ground is about ten feet above Ordnance Datum. The earlier boring, which reached Lower Greensand at a depth of over 903 feet, being of small size, in the lower part at all events, it was resolved to put down another and larger one near by, in order to get a large amount of water from the Lower Greensand; and it is to the second boring that this paper chiefly refers, because of the unforseen result. One would have thought that Chatham was favourably placed for getting a large suply of water from the Lower Greensand, which formation has a broad outcrop only a few miles to the south. It was therefore with some surprise that one heard that, after passing through only 41 feet of sandy beds (below the Gault), a mass of clay was reached at the depth of 943 feet. At first this clay was naturally taken to be either a very clayey development

On the “Chalk-Rock,” the Topmost Bed of the Lower Chalk, inBerkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, &c.

The bed to which I have elsewhere given the name of “Chalk-rock,” I believe to form the division between the Upper and Lower Chalk, and to be the topmost bed of the latter. I have described it as “hard blocky chalk, jointed perpendicularly to the plane of bedding, with lines of irregularly shaped, hard, calcareo-phosphatic nodules, which are green outside, but cream-coloured within.” It breaks with an even fracture, rings when struck with the hammer, and is of a pale cream-colour (the nodules being darker than the rest). For some time I thought that this bed had escaped the notice of geologists; but Mr. Prestwich tells me that he has long known of it. It has also been noticed by Mr. Evans, of Hemel Hempstead, and Mr. W. Cunnington, of Devizes. However, I believe that no account of it has yet been published, with the exception of the short description above referred to. My own observations have been confined to the counties of Wilts, Berks, Oxon, Bucks, and Herts—that is, to the northern side of the western part of the London Basin,—in which area I found that the Chalk-rock reaches its greatest thickness to the west, gradually thinning eastwards.