The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight Part 6

Gregory's _Making of the Earth_ in the Home University Library.]

[Footnote 15: See The _Wanderings of Animals_. By H. Gadow, F.R.S., Cambridge Manuals.]

Chapter XI

THE STORY OF THE ISLAND RIVERS; AND HOW THE ISLE OF WIGHT BECAME AN ISLAND

We must now consider the history of the river system of the Isle of Wight, to which our study of the gravels has brought us. For rivers have a history, sometimes a most interesting one, which carries us back far into the past. Even the little rivers of the Isle of Wight may be truly called ancient rivers. For though recent in comparison with the ages of geological time, they are of a vast antiquity compared with the historical periods of human history.

To understand our river systems we must go back to the time when strata formed by deposit of sediment in the sea were upheaved above the sea level. To take the simplest case, that of a single anticlinal axis fading off gradually at each end, we shall have a sort of turtle back of land emerged from the sea, as in figure 6, _aa_ being the anticlinal axis. From this ridge streams will run down on either side in the direction of the dip, their course being determined by some minor folds of the strata, or difference of hardness in the surface, or cracks formed during elevation. On each side of the dip-streams smaller ones will flow, more or less in the direction of the strike, and run into the main streams. Various irregularities, such as started the flow of the streams, will favour one or another. Consider three streams, _a_, _b_, _c_, and let us suppose the middle one the strongest, with greatest flow of water, and cutting down its bed most rapidly. Its side streams will become steeper and have more erosive force, and so will eat back their courses most rapidly until they strike the line of the streams on either side. Their steeper channels will then offer the best way for the upper waters of the streams they have cut to reach the sea; and these streams will consequently be tapped, and their head waters cut off to flow to the channel of the centre stream. We shall thus have for a second stage in the history a system such as is shown in fig. 7. The same process will continue till one river has tapped several others; and there will result the usual figure of a river and its tributaries, to which we are accustomed on our maps. We shall observe that tributaries do not as a rule gradually approach the central stream, but suddenly turn off at nearly a right angle from the direction in which they are flowing, and, after a longer or shorter course, join at another sharp angle a river flowing more or less parallel to their original direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7]

DEVELOPMENT OF RIVER SYSTEMS

The Chalk and overlying Tertiary strata were uplifted from the sea in great folds forming a series of such turtle-backs as we have been considering. The line of upheaval was not south-west and north-east, as that which raised the older formations in bands across England, but took place in an east and west direction. The main upheaval was that of the great Wealden anticline. Other folds produced the Sandown and Brook anticlines, and that of the Portsdown Hills. The upheaval seemed to have been caused by pressure acting from the south, for the steeper slope of each fold is on the northern side. Our latest Oligocene strata are tilted with the chalk, showing that the upheaval took place after Oligocene times. But the great movement was in the main earlier than the Pliocene. For on the North Downs near Lenham is a patch of Lower Pliocene deposit resting directly on the Chalk, the older Tertiary strata having been removed by denudation, clearly due to the uplift of the Wealden anticline. The raising of the Pliocene deposit to its present position proves that the same movement was continued at a later time, probably during the Pleistocene. But the greater part of the movement may be a.s.signed to the Miocene, the period of great world-movements which raised the Alps and the Himalaya.

Many remarkable, and, at first sight, very puzzling features connected with the courses of rivers find an explanation when we study the river history. Thus, looking at the Weald of Kent and Suss.e.x, we see that it consists of comparatively low ground rising to a line of heights east and west along the centre, and surrounded on all sides but the south-east by a wall of Chalk downs. If we considered the subject, we should suppose that the drainage of the country would be towards the south-east, which is open to the sea. Not so. All the rivers flow from the central heights north and south,--go straight for the walls of chalk downs, and cut through the escarpment in deep clefts to flow into the Thames and the Channel. This is explained when we remember that the rivers began to flow when the great curve of strata rose above the sea. Though eroded by the sea during its elevation, yet when it rose above the waters the arch of chalk must have been continuous from what are now North Downs to South. And from the centre line of the great turtle back the streams began to flow north and south, cutting in the course of ages deep channels for themselves. The greater erosion in their higher courses has cut away the ma.s.s of chalk from the centre of the Weald, but the rivers still flow in the direction determined when the arch was still entire.

We have a similar state of things in the Isle of Wight. Any one not knowing the geological story, and looking at the geography of the Island, might naturally suppose that there would be a stream flowing from west to east, through the low ground between the two ranges of downs, and finding its way into the sea in Sandown Bay. Instead of this the three rivers of the Island, the two Yars and the Medina, all flow north, and cut through the chalk escarpment of the Central downs, as if an earthquake had made rifts for them to pa.s.s, and so find their way into the Solent. The explanation is the same as in the case of the Weald. The rivers began to flow when the Chalk strata were continuous over the centre of the Island; and their course was determined when the east and west anticlinal axis rose above the sea.

We shall notice, however, that the Island rivers start from south of the anticlinal axis. The centre of the Sandown anticline runs just north of Sandown, but the various branches of the Yar and Medina flow from well south of this. The explanation would appear to be that the anticline is almost a monoclinal curve,--that is to say, one slope is steep, the other not far from horizontal. Streams starting from the ridge would flow with much greater force down the northern than the southern side, and would cut back their course much more quickly.

Thus they would continually cut into the heads of the southern streams, and turn the water supplying them into their own channels.

In its early history a river cuts out its bed, and carries along pebbles, sand and mud to the sea. The head waters are constantly cutting back, and the slope becoming less steep, till a time comes when the stream in its gently inclined lower course has no more power to excavate, and the finer sediment, which is all that now reaches the lower river, begins to fill up the old channel. And so the alluvium is formed which fills the lower portions of our river valleys.

Beyond this, the great rush of waters from melting snows and ice of the Glacial Period has come to an end. The gentler and diminished streams of a drier age have no power to roll flint stones along and form beds of gravel. Gravel terraces border our river valleys at a higher level than the present streams. Periods alternated during which gravels were laid down by the river, and when the river acquiring more erosive force, by an elevation of the land giving its bed a steeper gradient, or a wetter climate producing a greater rush of water, cut a new channel deeper in the old valley. So our valleys in Southern England are frequently bordered by a succession of gravel terraces, the higher ones being the older, dating from times when the river flowed at a higher level than at present. Such terraces may be seen above the Eastern Yar and its tributary streams. In the centre of the old gravels is the alluvial flat of a later age.

The Island rivers cut out their channels when the land stood at a higher level than at present. The old channels of the lower parts of the rivers are now filled with alluvium, partly brought down by the rivers and partly marine. The channels are cut down considerably below sea level; and by the sinking of the land the sea has flowed in, and the last parts of the river courses are now tidal estuaries. The sea does not cut out estuaries. They are the submerged ends of river valleys.

Some idea may be formed of the antiquity of our Island rivers by observing the depth of the clefts they have cut through the downs at Brading, Newport, and Freshwater. But to this we must add the depth at which the old channels lie below the alluvium. It would be interesting to know the thickness of the alluvium. But it is not often that borings come to be made in river alluvia. However, in the old Spithead forts artesian wells are sunk; and these pa.s.s through 70 to 90 feet of recent deposits before entering Eocene strata. Under St. Helen's Fort, at the mouth of Brading Harbour, are 80 feet of recent deposits. The old channel of the Yar, at its mouth, must lie at least at this depth.

Before it pa.s.ses through the gap in the Chalk downs the Yar has meandered about, and formed the alluvial flat called Morton marshes.

These marshes stretch out into the flat known as Sandown Level, which occupies the sh.o.r.e of the bay between Sandown and the Granite Fort.

What is the meaning of this extension of the alluvium away from the course of the river out to the sea at Sandown? A glance at it as pictured on a geological map will suggest the answer. We see clearly the alluvia of two streams converging from right and left, and uniting to pa.s.s to the sea through Brading Harbour. But the stream to the right has been cut off by the sea encroaching on Sandown Bay: only the last mile of alluvium is left to tell of a river pa.s.sed away. We must reconstruct the past. We see the Bay covered by land sloping up to east and south east, the lines of downs extending eastward from Dunnose and the Culvers, and an old river flowing northward, and cutting through the chalk at Brading after being joined by a branch from the west. This old river must have been the main stream. For it was a transverse stream, flowing nearly at right angles to the ridge of the anticline; while the Yar comes in as a tributary in the direction of the strike. Of other tributary streams, all from the right are gone by the destruction of the old land. On the left streams would flow in from the combes at Shanklin and Luccombe--streams which have now cut out Shanklin and Luccombe chines.

Pa.s.sing the gap in the downs the river meandered about, and, with marine deposit, washed in by the tides, formed the expanse of alluvium which occupies what was Brading Harbour,--a harbour which in old times presented at high tide a beautiful spectacle of land-locked water extending up to Brading. Inclosures and drainings have been made from time to time, the upper part near Yarbridge being taken in in the time of Edward I. Further innings were made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and Sir Hugh Middleton, who brought the New River to London, made an attempt to enclose the whole, but the sea broke through his embankment. The harbour was finally reclaimed at great cost in 1880, the present embankment enclosing an area of 600 acres.

The history of the Western Yar is similar to that of the Eastern. The main stream must have flowed from land now destroyed by the sea stretching far south of Freshwater Gate. All that is left is its tidal estuary, and the gravel terraces and alluvial flat formed in the last part of its course. Of a tributary stream an interesting relic remains. For more than 2 miles from Chilton Chine through Brook to Compton Grange a bed of river gravel lies at the top of the cliff, marking the course of an old stream, of which coast erosion has made a longitudinal section. This was a tributary of the Yar, when the mammoth left his remains in the gravel at Grange Chine and Freshwater Gate. Down the centre of the gravels lies a strip of alluvium laid down by a stream following the same course in later days. The sea had probably by this time cut into the stream; and it most likely flowed into the sea somewhere west of Brook. In the alluvium hazel nuts and twigs of trees are found at Shippard's Chine near Brook.

The lower course of the Medina is a submerged river valley, the tide flowing up to Newport. The river rises near Chale, and flows through a strip of alluvium, overgrown with marsh vegetation, known as "The Wilderness." This upper course of the Medina, from the absence of gravels or brick earth, has the appearance of a comparatively modern river. But the Medina has a further history. If you look at the map you will see branches of the Yar running south to north as transverse streams, but the main course is that of a lateral river. Look at the two chief sources of the Yar--the stream from near Whitwell and Niton, and that from the Wroxall valley. When they get down to the marshes near Rookley and Merston, they are not flowing at all in the direction of Sandown or Brading. They rather look as if they would flow along the marshy flat by Blackwater into the Medina. But the Yar cuts right across their course, and carries them off eastward to Sandown. When we look, we find a line of river valley with a strip of alluvium running up from the Medina at Blackwater in the direction of these two streams--a valley which the railway up the Yar valley from Sandown makes use of to get to Newport. There can be little doubt that these streams from Niton and Wroxall originally ran along this line into the Medina; but the Yar, cutting its course backward, has captured them, and diverted their course. They probably represent the main branches of the Medina in earlier times, the direction of flow from south-east to north-west instead of south to north being possibly due to the overlapping in the neighbourhood of Newport of the ends of the Brook and Sandown anticlines. The sheet of gravel on Blake Down belongs to this period of the river's history. The river must have diverted between the deposition of the Plateau Gravels and that of the Valley Gravels of the Yar. For the former follow the original valley, the latter the new course of the river.

We must now take a wider outlook, and see what became of our rivers after they had flowed across what is now the Isle of Wight from south to north. We have been speaking of times when the Island was of much greater extent than at present. Standing on the down above the Needles, and looking westward, we see on a clear day the Isle of Purbeck lying opposite, and we can see that the headland there is formed by white chalk cliffs like those beneath us. In front of them stand the Old Harry Rocks, answering to the Needles, both relics of a former extension of the land. In fact Purbeck is just like a continuation of the Isle of Wight. South of the Chalk lie Greensand and Wealden strata in Swanage Bay, and north towards Poole are Tertiaries. Clearly these strata were once continuous with those of the Isle of Wight. We must imagine the chalk downs of the Island continued as a long range across what is now sea, and on through Purbeck. A great Valley must have stretched from west to east, north of this line, along the course of the Frome, which runs through Dorset, and now enters the sea at Poole Harbour, on by Bournemouth, and along the present Solent Channel--a valley still much above sea level, not yet cut down by rivers and the sea--and down the centre of this valley a river must have flowed, which may be called the River Solent. It received as tributaries from the south the rivers of the Isle of Wight, and others from land since destroyed by the sea. There flowed into it from the north the waters of the Stour and Avon, and an old river which flowed down the line of what is now Southampton Water.

Southampton Water looks like the valley of a large river, much larger than the present Test and Itchen. Its direction points to a river from the north west; and it has been shown by Mr. Clement Reid that the Salisbury rivers--Avon, Nadder, and Wily--at a former time, when they flowed far above their present level--continued their course into the valley of Southampton Water. For fragments of Purbeck rocks from the Vale of Wardour, west of Salisbury, have been found by him in gravels on high land near Bramshaw, carried right over the deep vale of the Avon in the direction of the Water. The lower Avon would originally be a tributary of the Solent River; and it enters the sea about mid-way between the Needles and the chalk cliffs of Purbeck, just opposite the point where we might suppose the sea would have first broken through the line of chalk downs. No doubt it broke through a gap made by the course of an old river from the south, as it is now breaking through the gap made by the old Yar at Freshwater. When the river Solent had been tapped at this point, the Avon just opposite would have acquired a much steeper flow, causing it to cut back at a faster rate, till it cut the course of the old river which ran by Salisbury to Southampton, and, having a steeper fall, diverted the upper waters of this river into its own channel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8 THE OLD SOLENT RIVER]

Frost and rain and rivers cut down the valleys of the river system for hundreds of feet; the sea which had broken through the chalk range gradually cut away the south side of the main river valley from Purbeck to the Needles; and eventually the valley itself was submerged by a subsidence of the land, and the sea flowed between the Isle of Wight and the mainland.

A gravel of somewhat different character to the rest is the sheet of flint shingle at Bembridge Foreland. It forms a cliff of gravel about 25 feet high resting on Bembridge marls, and consists of large flints, with lines of smaller flints and sand showing current bedding, and also contains Greensand chert and sandstone, which must have been brought from some district beyond the Chalk. The shingle slopes to north-east.

To the south-west it ends abruptly, the dividing line between shingle and marls running up steeply into the cliff. This evidently marks an old sea cliff in the marls, against which the gravel has been laid down.[16]

One or two comparatively recent deposits may be mentioned here. At the top of the cliff in Totland Bay, about 60 ft. above the sea, for a distance of 350 yards, is a lacustrine deposit, consisting in the main of a calcareous tufa deposited by springs flowing from the limestone of Headon Hill. The tufa contains black lines from vegetable matter, and numerous land and freshwater sh.e.l.ls of present-day species--many species of Helix, especially H. nemoralis and H. rotundata, Cyclostoma elegans, Limnaea pal.u.s.tris, Pupa, Clausilia, Cyclas, and others.

On the top of Gore Cliff is a deposit of hard calcareous mud, reaching a thickness of about 9 feet, and forming a small vertical cliff above the slopes of chalk marl. It extends north a few yards beyond the chalk marl on to Lower Greensand. It has been formed by rainwash from a hill of chalk, which must once have existed to the south. The deposit contains numerous existing land-sh.e.l.ls, especially _Helix nemoralis_ and other species of Helix.

Between Atherfield and Chale at the top of the cliff is a large area of Blown Sand. The sand is blown up from the face of the cliff below.

It reaches a thickness of 20 feet, and possibly more in places, and forms a line of sand dunes along the edge of the cliff. The upper part of Ladder Chine shows an interesting example of wind-erosion. The sand driven round it by the wind has worn it into a semi-circular hollow like a Roman theatre.

Small spits, consisting partly of blown sand, extend opposite the mouths of the Western Yar, the Newtown river, and the most extensive--at the mouth of the old Brading Harbour, separating the present reduced Bembridge Harbour from the sea. This is called St.

Helen's Spit, or "Dover,"--the local name for these sand spits.

[Footnote 16: Fig. 9, p. 79.]

Chapter XII

THE COMING OF MAN.

We have watched the long succession of varied life on the earth recorded in the rocks, and now we come to the most momentous event of all in the history--the coming of Man. The first certain evidence of the presence of man on the earth is found with the coming of the Glacial Period,--unless indeed the supposed flint implements found by Mr. Reid Moir, under the Crag in Suffolk, should prove him earlier still. It is a rare chance that the skeleton of a land animal is preserved; especially rare in the case of a skeleton so frail as that of man. The best chance for the preservation of bones is in deposits in caves, which were frequently the dens of wild beasts and the shelters of man. But the implements used by early man were happily of a very imperishable nature. His favourite material, if he could get it, was flint. Flint could by dexterous blows have flake after flake taken off, till it formed a tool or weapon with sharp point and cutting edge. The implements, though only chipped, or flaked, were often admirably made. They have very characteristic shapes. Moreover, the kind of blow--struck obliquely--by which these early men made their tools left marks which stamp them as of human workmanship. The flake struck off shows what is called a "bulb of percussion"--a swelling which marks the spot where the blow was struck--and from this extends a series of ripples, producing a surface like that of a sh.e.l.l, from which this mode of breaking is called conchoidal fracture. Often, by further chipping the flake itself is worked into an implement.

Implements have also been made of chert, but it is far more difficult to work, as it naturally breaks in an irregular way into sharp angular fragments. Flint, on the other hand, lent itself admirably to the use of early man, who in time acquired a perfect mastery of the material.

The working of flints is so characteristic that, once accustomed to them, you cannot mistake a good specimen. Sea waves dashing pebbles about will sometimes produce a conchoidal fracture, but never a series of fractures in the methodical way in which a flint was worked by man.

And, of course, specimens may be found so worn that it is difficult to be sure about their nature. Again early man may, especially in very early times, have been content to use a sharp stone almost as he found it, with only the slightest amount of knocking it into shape. So that in such a case it will be very difficult to decide whether the stones have formed the implements of man or not. In later times men learnt to polish their implements, and made polished stone axes like those the New Zealanders and South Sea Islanders used to make in modern times.

The old age of chipped or flaked implements is called the Palaeolithic; the later age when they were ground or polished the Neolithic. (Simple implements, as knives and sc.r.a.pers, were still unpolished.) The history of early man is a long story in itself, and of intense interest. But we must not leave our geological story unfinished by leaving out the culmination of it all in man. In the higher gravels--the Plateau Gravels--no remains of man are found; but in the lower--the Valley Gravels,--of the South of England is found abundant evidence of the presence of man. Large numbers of flint implements have been collected from the Thames valley and over the whole area of the rivers which have gravel terraces along their course. Over a large sheet of gravel at Southampton, whenever a large gravel pit is dug, implements are found at the base of the gravel.[17] The occurrence of the mammoth and other arctic creatures in the gravels shows that in the Glacial Period man was contemporary with these animals. Remains in caves tell the same story. In limestone caverns in Devon, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, implements made by man are found in company with remains of the cave bear, cave hyaena, lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and other animals either extinct or no longer inhabitants of this country--remains which have been preserved under floors of stalagmite deposited in the caves. In caves of central France men have left carvings on bone and ivory, representing the wild animals of that day--carvings which show a remarkable artistic sense, and a keen observation of animal life. Among them is a drawing of the mammoth on a piece of mammoth ivory, showing admirably the appearance of the animal, with his long hair, as he has been found preserved in ice to the present day near the mouths of Siberian rivers. Drawings of the reindeer, true to life, are frequent.

Till recently very few Palaeolithic implements had been recorded as found in the Isle of Wight. In the Memoir of the Geological Survey (1889) only one such is recorded, found in a patch of brick earth near Howgate Farm, Bembridge.[18] A few more implements, which almost certainly came from this brick-earth, have been found on the sh.o.r.e since. In recent years a large number of Palaeolithic implements have been found at Priory Bay near St. Helen's. They were first observed on the beach by Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., in 1886, and were traced to their source in the gravel in the cliff by Miss Moseley in 1902. From that time, and especially from 1904 onwards, many have been found by Prof. Poulton, by R. W. Poulton (and others). Up to 1909 about 150 implements had been found, and there have been more finds since.[19]

The most important finds, besides those at Priory Bay, have been those of Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren at Freshwater, especially in trial borings in loam and clay below the surface soil in a depression of the High Downs, south of Headon Hill, at a level of about 360 ft. O.D., in which a number of Palaeolithic tools, flakes, and cores were found[20].

Isolated implements have been found in recent years in various localities in the Island. There are references to finds of implements at different times in the past, but the descriptions are generally too vague to conclude certainly to what date they belong. Much of the gravel used in the Island comes from the angular gravel on St.

Boniface Down, or the high Plateau Gravel of St. George's Down; but in the lower gravels and a.s.sociated brick earth, it is highly probable that more remains of Palaeolithic man will yet be found in the Island, and quite possible that such have been found in the past, but for want of accurate descriptions of the circ.u.mstances of the finds are lost to us.

We must pa.s.s on to the men of the Neolithic or later stone age. The Palaeolithic age was of very great duration, much longer than all succeeding human history. Between Palaeolithic and Neolithic times there is in England a large gap. In France various stages have been traced showing a continual advance in culture. In England little, if anything, has been found belonging to the intermediate stages. Such remains may yet be found in caves, or in lower river gravels, now buried below the alluvium. The gap between Palaeolithic and Neolithic is marked by the great amount of river erosion which took place in the interval. Palaeolithic implements are found in gravels formed when the rivers flowed some 100 feet above their present courses. Take, _e.g._, the Itchen at Southampton. After the 100 foot gravels were deposited the river cut down, not merely to its present level, but to an old bed now covered up by various deposits beneath the river. After cutting down to that bed the river laid down gravels upon it; and then--the land standing at a higher level than to-day--the river valley and the surrounding country were covered by a forest, which, as the climate altered and became damper, was succeeded by the formation of peat. The land has since sunk, and the peat, in parts 17 ft. thick, is now found under Southampton Water, covered by estuarine silt. The Empress Dock at Southampton was dug where a mud bank was exposed at low water. The mud bank was formed of river silt 12 to 17 feet thick. Below this was the peat, resting on gravel. On the gravel horns of reindeer were found. In the peat were large horn cores of the great extinct ox, _Bos primigenius_, also horns of red deer, and also in the peat were found neolithic flint chips, a circular stone hammer head, with a hole bored through for a wooden handle, and a large needle made of horn. Here, at a great interval of time after Palaeolithic man, as we see by the history of the river we have just traced, we come to the new race of men, the Neolithic.

When Neolithic man appeared the land stood higher than at present, though not so high as during great part of the Pleistocene. Britain was divided from the Continent, but the sh.o.r.es were a good way out into what is now sea round the coasts, and forests clothed these further sh.o.r.es. Remains of these, known as submerged forest, are found below the tide mark round many parts of our coast. Peat as at Southampton Docks, is found under the estuarine mud off Netley. The wells at the Spithead Forts show an old land surface with peat more than 50 feet below the tide level. The old bed of the Solent river lies much lower still--124 feet below high tide at Noman's Land Fort; this channel was probably an estuary after the subsidence of the land till it silted up with marine deposits to the level on which the submerged forest grew.