the whole, falls about thirty feet. The quantity of water is in general so small, that the cascade is scarcely worth viewing; but, after great rains, it must be very pretty. The sides of the gloomy hollow in which it falls, are of the blackish indurated clay, of which the greater part of the soil hereabouts is composed, and the damp of the waters has covered most parts of it with shining green lichens, and mosses of various shades. The brushwood which grows on the brow on either side, overhangs, so as nearly to meet; and the whole scene, though it cannot be considered as magnificent, is certainly striking and grotesque. Above the fall, the stream continues to run in a deep and shady channel, quite to the foot of the hills in which it takes its rise.'

It is evident that excavations of this kind can only be produced where water flows over a bank consisting of clay, or some other material that is soft enough to be readily cut into by a small stream, and, at the same time, tenacious and tough enough to maintain the edges of the cut steep or perpendicular. Wherever this is the case, what is here called a Chine may be produced. They abound on the south side of the Isle of Wight; and several more are described in the work before us. The name of Chine is somewhat peculiar. In its literal signification, it is the part of the back in which the spine or back-bone is contained; and it is no doubt from some supposed analogy with this, that the term is here applied. It seems to have been so used by Dryden, when he employs it as a verb;-He that did chine the long-ribbed Appenine.

The scenery in this island which borders most upon the sublime and magnificent, is that of the chalk cliffs, particularly at the cast end of the island, about the Needles and Alum Bay, Whitecliff Bay, &c. Some of these cliffs are quite perpendicular, and not less than 400 feet, or even 600 in height. The whole scenery of Alum Bay is superior in magnificence to that of any other part of the island.

The chalk forms an unbroken face, everywhere nearly perpendicular, and, in some parts, formidably projecting; and the tenderest stains of ochreous yellow, and greenish moist vegetation, vary, without breaking, its sublime uniformity. This vast wall extends more than a quarter of a mile, and is hardly less than 400 feet in height; its termination is a thin edge, not perpendicular, but of a bold broken outline; and the wedge-like Needle rocks, arising out of the blue waters, seem to continue the cliff beyond its present boundary, and give an awful impression of the stormy ages which have gradually devoured its enormous mass. The chalk rising from the sea nearly perpendicular, being totally in the shadow, while, opposed to the blue sky above, and the pellucid green of the sea at its foot, it has a sort of aerial tint, as if it were semitransparent;

while here and there a projecting point of the edge of the cliff, catching the sunshine, is of a whiteness so transplendent that it seems to sparkle by its own native light.

The magical repose of this side of the bay is wonderfully contrasted by the torn forms and vivid colouring of the clay cliffs on the opposite side. These do not present rounded headlands, covered with turf and shrubs, as in some other parts of the coast, but offer a series of points which are often quite sharp and spiry. Deep, rugged chasms divide the strata in many places, and not a vestige of ve getation appears in any part. The tints of the cliff are so bright and so varied, that they have not the appearance of any thing natural. Deep purplish red, dusky blue, bright ochreous yellow, grey and black succeed one another, as sharply defined as the stripes in silk.'

From this description, it is evident that few places present a greater contrast within a small compass, than the two opposite sides of Alum Bay. To this very beautiful and excellent de scription, we shall add that of the prospect from the lofty headland, where the light-house is situated a little to the south of this bay.

The contrast of the clearness of the air towards the land, and over the sea, is more striking from this point than any other, though it can scarcely fail of being observed from most of the elevated spots in the island. Towards the land, the whole prospect, when I viewed it in a very fine day, was bright and distinct: The Solent sea, of a deep azure, was studded with white sails shining like silver; and the distant hills of Hampshire melted into the air in the most pearly clearness. Over the sea hung an haze, which dulled every object, and its horizon was faint and indistinct. It is a very remarkable fact, that although the land behind Cherbourg is as high as Beachy-head, and full ten miles nearer to St Catherine's hill, no person ever saw or heard of its being seen from thence; while, in clear weather, Beachy. head is almost constantly visible. It seems not easy to account for this, particularly as the line of vision to both these points passes directly over the sea, without any land whatever intervening; so that any vapour arising from the water ought to operate equally in each

case.

We pass over the antiquities:-those in the island are not numerous or striking, and afford but few subjects in which the antiquary can display much knowledge or research. We must observe, however, that it is to give a very imperfect idea of the beauty or value of this work, to speak only of the descriptions, or, in general, of the letter-press which it contains. The engravings, by which it is illustrated, are very striking and very finely executed. The drawings were made by SIR HENRY ENGLEFIELD, or by MR WEBSTER, of whose share in the compo

The hill on which the light-house stands.

sition of this work we are to speak more hereafter. They are engraved by MR COOKE in a masterly style. They They are numerous, and possess the singular advantage of giving the true mineralogical character of the rocks, where the scenery admits of it, combined with great force of execution and grandeur of effect. To the effect, indeed, this circumstance very materially contributes; and, we hope, one of the advantages derived to artists. from the perusal of this volume, will be a conviction, that attention to the real characters of rocks, and the correct representation of them, tend to give a truth and reality to their landscapes which could not otherwise be attained. Observers, who have never attended much to these characters, will recognise them as real objects when presented by the draughtsman or the painter, and will feel that the justness and force of the impression are both essentially improved. We have great pleasure in anticipating such consequences from the work before us; and we have learned, with great satisfaction, that they have already begun to be felt. We should be led into too much detail, if we were to enter minutely into the consideration of the engravings. We cannot, however, deny ourselves the pleasure of mentioning some of them. Plate 3d is a view of the cliffs at Dunnose, by SIR HENRY ENGLEFIELD. The perpendicular and parallel fissures, which give these cliffs a very peculiar character, are copied from nature; and so are the masses in the fore ground, which having separated and slid down from the face of the cliff, have fallen, as it were, backwards. The effect of the whole is very striking. Freshwater Cave, which is the 6th plate, is remarkable for its strong and characteristic features. Plate 4th is a view of one of the Chines, viz. Blackgang Chine, and gives a very accurate idea of this kind of ravine, and of the small rill of water to which these curious excavations owe their origin. The waterfall here is 74 feet in height. Among the plates destined to illustrate the antiquities, &c. we would particularly remark Ivyhouse, plate 10th; Quarr-abbey, plate 12th.-The plates amount in all to 50, beside the charts.

After Sir Henry Englefield had finished his observations, as they did not extend to all the objects he wished to embrace, he prevailed on Mr Thomas Webster, well known by his communications to the Geological Society, to undertake the completion of the work; and to his additional observations, which are chiefly geological, we are indebted for a great deal of valuable information. They indeed do great honour to Mr Webster, both as a geologist and a draughtsman. We select, as a specimen, some of the remarks which he has made on the vertical strata of Alum Bay, already frequently mentioned. The beds of clay on

the north side of that bay, which lean against the vertical strata of chalk, he considers as belonging to those beds that lie above the chalk in the southern counties of England. These beds of clay, though their order is not completely ascertained, are known to lie immediately on that division of the chalk formation which contains in it nodules of flint. The same, making allowance for their change of position, in respect to the horizon, is the relation in which the beds of clay and the strata of chalk stand to one another at Alum Bay. The north part, therefore, of the Isle of Wight must be considered as consisting of beds which lie above the chalk.

With respect to the chalk formation, Mr Webster remarks, that in no part of England have extensive limestone strata been found over the chalk; but that, in France, the contrary happens; so that there appear to be limestone rocks of later formation than those of chalk. He thinks that, in the Isle of Wight, there are appearances of the same thing; and that some of the limestone rocks belong to the fresh-water formation described by CUVIER and BROGNIART, as existing in the basin of Paris. It appears to him probable, that a chalk basin has existed in the Isle of Wight similar to that at Paris; and that they are both filled with horizontal depositions, some of which are calca

rcous.

With respect to the vertical position of so large a portion of these strata, so well and so strikingly exhibited by the shores of this Island, the same accurate observer has made some important remarks.

• That all the modern strata have been originally formed in a horizontal manner, or nearly so, appears to be the most reasonable supposition; and the numerous fossils and other marine exuviæ, demonstrate that they had their origin at the bottom of an ocean. It is impossible to view the vertical strata of clay, sand, and other substances composing the cliffs of Alum Bay, without feeling assured that they were not originally formed in the vertical position in which we now see them. If any doubt could be entertained of this conclusion, it must be entirely removed, on observing among them several vertical layers of rounded flint pebbles in the strata of loose sand. The whole of these, therefore, must have been at one time horizontal; and the same reasoning applies also to the chalk. But by what cause was such a change produced? How could such prodigious masses alter their position so considerably?' To these two questions, however, Mr Webster gives no answer; but remarks, that whether the continents have been elevated above the surface of the sea by some power acting from below; or whe

ther the bed of the sea has been occasioned by a subsidence, and the land left dry by the gradually diminishing level of the ocean, are questions that have long divided geologists. The change, however, from whatever cause it happened, must have taken place after the formation of the beds of clay; because those beds belong to the series whose position has been altered. One of Mr Webster's objects, and one truly scientific, was to observe if the verticity, or the disturbed condition of the strata in the Isle of Wight extended to the coast of Dorsetshire. He has accordingly described the phenomena which he observed on this latter coast, particularly at Handfast Point. He there met with strata of chalk exceedingly hard, so as hardly to be scratched with the nail, and these same strata either bent and turned upward, or highly inclined. What is remarkable was, that, at some distance from the curved strata, where the chalk is horizontal, it resumes its usual softness. Some of these strata are quite vertical; and the curved strata rest upon them with their concavity upward. It is not to be understood by this, that the curved strata are on the top of the vertical ;-they are at one side, and lean against them.

The 27th plate represents this remarkable spot; and Mr Webster, in speaking of it, says very truly, that it exhibits one of the most curious geological phenomena yet observed in this country; and, what is scarcely less extraordinary, it had hitherto entirely escaped observation. No one had yet noticed strata of chalk quite vertical; and the curved strata resting upon these, with the peculiar state of the flinty nodules, have not only no parallel in this Island, but, in the present state of our knowledge, cannot be accounted for in a satisfactory manner.'

The state of the flints to which he here alludes, is, that these flints which were in vertical layers at the usual distance from each other, were not only much shattered, but appeared to have been reduced to fragments, while the chalk was yet in a soft state: for the fragments were in general separated from each other, with chalk between them. Nor was this chalk only in a small quantity,-such as might be supposed to arise from infiltration; but the broken pieces of flint were often at such distances, that it appeared impossible that they could have been so far removed, had the chalk been solid at the instant of fracture. The same distance between the fragments of the broken Alint is not always observed, every gradation being visible from flints in such condition as they are found in, in the Isle of Wight, to those that have just been described. The fact here stated is the more valuable, that it proves, as Mr Webster has very well remarked, that the shattering of the flints took place