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ded parts are the Needles and Shingles, at the western point; Rocken-end Race at the south, and Bembridge Ledge at the eastern extremity: few winters pass without the melancholy catastrophe of shipwreck; though the danger is now of course diminished by the establishment of Light-houses--especially of the new one near Niton.--Owing to this cause, and to the precipitous nature of the coast itself, the island presents few points favorable to an enemy's landing, and even those were for the most part fortified by order of Henry VIII: The forts of Sandown, Cowes, and Yarmouth still remain; and though they might be of little use in the present state of military science, the presence of "England's wooden walls" at the stations of Spithead and St. Helen's, renders all local defences needless. _Geology, Agriculture, and Zoology_. The island presents many rare geological phenomena: and from its smallness, easy access, and the various nature of its coasts, offers an admirable field for scientific investigation. One peculiarity deserves to be particularly noticed; namely, the extraordinary state in which the FLINTS are found in the great range of chalk hills,--for all those in regular beds, are broken into pieces in every direction, from two or three inches long, to an almost impalpable powder; and yet show no other indication of their fracture than very fine lines, until the investing chalk be removed, when they fall at once to pieces! But the separate flints or nodules in the body of the chalk strata are not so: which led the late Sir H. Englefield to conjecture, that the phenomenon was caused in the moment of the immense concussion which subverted the whole mass of strata, and placed them in their present nearly vertical position. Another interesting circumstance in the geological structure of the Isle of Wight, is a series of strata, _vertical_ or highly inclined, which run across the middle of it from east to west; while the strata on each side are _horizontal_; they consist of ... a very thick stratum of clay and sand (observable at Alum Bay), flinty chalk, chalk without flints, chalk-marle, green sandstone with lime-stone and chert, dark-grey marle, and ferruginous sand. A PROGRESSIVE CHANGE is evidently taking place in the boundary line of the coast--the sea making considerable invasions on the south side, which is exposed to the resistless currents of the ocean; while on the north it is found to be more gradually
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