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