Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/735

1870.] on the opposite or Netley side of the water there is a low gravel-capped cliff, 10 or 20 feet above the sea-level, from which the ground rises at first rather sharply to 60 feet, and then gradually to an escarpment from 200 to 300 feet high, overlooking ground to the north-eastward 140 or 160 feet lower in level (sections Nos. 2 and 6). This escarpment extends from Chilworth, by Bitterne, Bursledon Mill, and Sarisbury Green, to the Titchfield river. It varies in height from 304 feet at Chilworth, to 150 feet near Titchfield, and is roughly parallel to Southampton Water and the coast-line. The surface is very generally covered with gravel or brick-earth, except where it has been removed by fluviatile action; and the rivers Itchen and Hamble and the Titchfield river cut through the tableland exactly as the Boldre and Beaulieu rivers do on their way to the Solent, so that Southampton Water bears the same relation to the former rivers as the Solent does to the latter. The bottom of the Itchen valley is shown in section No. 6 through Southampton to Chilworth and Chandler's Ford. About Shirley, Chilworth, and Toot Hill the carving out of deep valleys in sloping tableland is as remarkable as near Bramshaw telegraph.

The river Test, which is by far the most considerable of the rivers flowing into Southampton Water, is bordered on the west, near Romsey, by high ground covered with gravel, which, near Shootash, attains a height of 275 feet above the sea, or 240 feet above the Test valley. From Shootash a gravel-covered crest runs northwards for two miles, having low ground on the west and a gradual slope towards the river; and high land covered with gravel extends for three miles to the south of Shootash, at an elevation of upwards of 140 feet above the valley.

At Cadbury Farm, one mile north-east of Mottisfont and five miles above Romsey, is a patch of gravel 15 feet thick, about 270 feet above the sea, and nearly 200 feet above the river, which appears to be an outlier of the gravel just described.

On the east of the Test, opposite the high gravels of Shootash, extensive gravel-covered surfaces occur at from 80 to 100 feet above the river, between which and a lower level of gravel a well-defined step is observable. About Redbridge there are gravel flats at a low level, which, towards Southampton, appear to join the sheet of gravel which covers the sloping tableland, and extends up to the escarpment.

Bordering on the Itchen, between Bishopstoke and Swathling, is a great bed of gravel at about 20 feet above the river. Lower down the river, where it traverses the high ground, there are gravels at the same level, cut off from the gravel covering the plain by a bare slope. Near the confluence of the river with Southampton Water the gravel covering the tableland and the valley-gravel of the Itchen appear to join.

To the east of the Hamble river the tableland of Titchfield commonis separated from the lower ground of Chilling and Brunage by a tolerably well-defined step, which extends beyond the Titchfield river, and is shown in section No. 7 from Brunage and section