WIGHT, ISLE ors, an island in the English channel, remarkable for the variety and beauty of its scenery, and the mildness and salubrity of its climate, lies almost centrally, close off the southern coast of England, in which it is partially embayed, and is divided from it by a channel varying from less than 1 m. to more than 6 In. in breadth, known as the Solent (q.v.), which spreads out to the e. into the broad and safe anchorage of Spithead (q.v.) and St. Helen's roads. Its form is remarkably regular, its longer and shorter diameters (22 m. 5 furlongs, and 131 m. in length respectively) running almost clue e. and w., and u. and south. Its shape is rhomboidal, and has been compared to a bird with i th expanded wings or to a turbot. It is 56 m. in circuit, and embraces an area, including its inlets, of 98,320 acres. Pop. '71, 66,165. Newport, which returns one member to parliament, the island returning one, is the capital; the other chief towns are Ryde, Cowes, and Ventnor (all described under their separate headings), of which the first and last have sprung up from small villages within the present century. Yar mouth is a small decayed t. near the western extremity of the island, formerly returning two members, a privilege once also possessed by Newtown on the n. w, coast, a once im portant town, now sunk to an insignificant hamlet. • On the s.e. coast, the delightful healtlyesorts of Sandown and Shanklin have lately acquired the size and importance of towns. Railway communication has been opened between Ryde and Ventnor, and be tween Cowes and Newport. Throughout the island there are good though generally narrow i w roads, for the most part picturesque and bounded by hedgerows. Tice chief physical feature of the island, to which it owes its shape and much of its beauty, is a long undulating range of chalk downs, extending, as a kind of backbone, from the Culver cliffs on the e. to the Needles on the w. rising to its greatest elevation in Mottis. ton down, 661 ft. (Ashey down is 424 ft., and Berabridge down 355 ft.) above the sea. The river Medina, rising near the southern extremity of the island, flows n. through a gap in this range, expands into a tidal estuary below Newport, and flows into the Solent at and divides the island into the hundreds of the e. and w. Medina. In addition to the central ridge, a second range of chalk downs, of greater elevation—St. Boniface down, 783 ft., Dunnose (Shanklin down), 771 ft., St. Catherine's, 769 ft.—rises at the southern point of the island, and expands into a broad promontory, the s, face of which forms the picturesque district known as the Undereliff, or " back of the island," of which Ventnor is the capital. This district owes its remarkable beauty to a series of land-slips on a gigantic scale, of prehistoric date, which have laid bare a long wall of rugged cliff, below which a sbc cession of sunny terraces, due to the gradual subsidence of the strata, slope gently down to the sea. The whole of this part of the island is completely sheltered from the corder
winds, and enjoys a well-merited reputation as a residence for invalids suffering from consumption or any disease of the respiratory organs. Its remarkable healthiness is at tested by the returns of the registrar-general, which prove that the death-rate of the dis trict is absolutely the lowest in the kingdom; while the mildness of its climate is evi denced by the luxuriance of the myrtles, fuchsias, sweet-scented verbenas, and other exotics, which live through the winter without protection.
In a geological point of view, the isle of Wight is most interesting. The great vari ety of strata displayed within so small an area, under circumstances so favorable for ex amination, renders it one of the best available localities for the young observer. The side of the island presents a succession of tertiary or eocene strata, including beds of fresh-water limestone) which have been extensively worked for building-stone for many centuries, and based on beds of London and plastic clay. In Alum hay, at the w. ex tremity of the island, the rapid succession of vertical layers of sand and clays of bright and varied hues, produce a singular and beautiful effect. The central ridge or hack. bone consists of strata of chalk imbedding layers of flints, and the underlying forma tion in an almost vertical position. Isolated of chalk that, in consequence of their superior hardness, have survived the marine and atmospheric waste, form the well known Needles, at the w.. opening of the Solent, and the picturesque rocks of Fresh water bay. The downs at the s. of the island belong to the same formation, but here the strata have been undisturbed, and are nearly horizontal. The cliffs of the UnderelitT are of the upper green-sand or firestone, underlying the chalk. Below this comes the gault or blue marl. To the action of the land-springs upon this unctuous formation, the land-slips to which the back of the island owes its beauty are due. The lower green sand succeeds the gault, occupying the greater part of the area between the a. and s. chalk downs. This forms excellent corn-land, and presents a wall of cliff to the sea, divessified with many narrow picturesque gorges, locally known as chines, where a small rivulet has eaten away the friable strata. The chief of these are those of Shanklin, Luecombe, Blackgang, and Whale chine. The fresh-water wealden formation is the lowest visible in the island, and is seen in the cliffs of Brook to the w., and of Redeliff hay to the east. Bones of the colossal iguanodon and other saurians are found in this formation.