or foliage beds more magnificently laid out; while in few other parts of the country can one find so many large houses, representative of the various schools of modern architectural art, as in Bournemouth and her tree-clad parks.

Another factor that has played a large part in the rapid development of the town is the excellence of the railway services from all parts of the country, and particularly from London. During the summer months several trains run daily from Waterloo to Bournemouth without a stop, doing the journey in two hours; so that if the London and South Western Railway Company are fortunate in having a monopoly of this traffic, the town is equally fortunate in being served by a railway company which has made it almost a marine suburb of London.

Bournemouth West Railway Station, situated on Poole Hill, was completed and the line opened in the summer of 1874. In 1884-5 the Central Station, or Bournemouth East as it was then called, was built, and the two stations connected by a loop-line.

The whole of the Bournemouth district lies in the western part of the great valley or depression which stretches from Shoreham, in Sussex, to near Dorchester, occupying the whole of South Hampshire and the greater part of the south of Sussex and Dorset. The valley is known as the chalk basin of Hampshire, and is formed by the high range of hills extending from Beachy Head to Cerne Abbas. To the north the chain of hills remains intact, whilst the southern portion of the valley has been encroached upon, and two great portions of the wall of chalk having been removed, one to the east and one to the west, the Isle of Wight stands isolated and acts as a kind of breakwater to the extensive bays, channels, and harbours which have been scooped out of the softer strata by the action of the sea. Sheltered by the Isle of Wight are the Solent and Southampton Water; westward are the bays and harbours of Christchurch, Bournemouth, Poole, Studland, and Swanage. The great bay between the promontories of the Needles and Ballard Down, near Swanage, is subdivided by the headland of Hengistbury Head into the smaller bays of Christchurch and Bournemouth.

THE WINTER GARDENS, BOURNEMOUTH

The famous Winter Gardens and spacious glass Pavilion where concerts are held are under the management of the Corporation. Bournemouth spends a sum of £6000 annually in providing band music for her visitors.

The site of the town is an elevated tableland formed by an extensive development of Bagshot sands and clays covered with peat or turf, and partly, on the upland levels, with a deep bed of gravel.

The sea-board is marked with narrow ravines, gorges, or glens, here called "Chines", but in the north of England designated "Denes".

For boating people the bay affords a daily delight, although Christchurch and Poole are the nearest real harbours. At the close of a summer's day, when sea and sky and shore are enveloped in soft mist, nothing can be more delightful than to flit with a favouring wind past the picturesque Chines, or by the white cliffs of Studland. The water in the little inlets and bays lies still and blue, but out in the dancing swirl of waters set up by the sunken rocks at the base of a headland, all the colours of the rainbow seem to be running a race together. Yachts come sailing in from Cowes, proud, beautiful shapes, their polished brass-work glinting in the sunlight, while farther out in the Channel a great ocean liner steams steadily towards the Solent, altering her course repeatedly as she nears the Needles.

And yet, with all her desirable qualities and attractive features, Bournemouth is not to everyone's taste, particularly those whose holidays are incomplete without mediæval ruins on their doorsteps. The town, however, is somewhat fortunate even in this respect, since, although she has no antiquities of her own, she is placed close to Wimborne and Poole on the one hand, and to Christchurch, with its ancient Priory, on the other. Poole itself is not an ideal place to live in, while Wimborne and Christchurch are out-of-the-way spots, interesting enough to the antiquary, but dull, old-fashioned towns for holiday makers. The clean, firm sands of Bournemouth are excellent for walking on, and make it possible for the pedestrian to tramp, with favourable tides, the whole of the fourteen miles of shore that separate Poole Harbour from Christchurch. By a coast ramble of this kind the bold and varied forms of the cliffs, and the coves cutting into them, give an endless variety to the scene; while many a pretty peep may be obtained where the Chines open out to the land, or where the warmly-coloured cliffs glow in the sunlight between the deep blue of the sea and the sombre tints of the heather lands and the pine-clad moor beyond.

The clays and sandy beds of these cliffs are remarkable for the richness of their fossil flora. From the white, grey, and brownish clays between Poole Harbour and Bournemouth, no fewer than nineteen species of ferns have been determined. The west side of Bournemouth is rich in Polypodiaceæ, and the east side in Eucalypti and Araucaria. These, together with other and sub-tropical forms, demonstrate the existence of a once luxuriant forest that extended to the Isle of Wight, where, in the cliffs bounding Alum Bay, are contemporaneous beds. The Bournemouth clay beds belong to the Middle Eocene period.

Westwards from the Pier the cliffs are imposing, on one of the highest points near the town being the Lookout. A hundred yards or so farther on is Little Durley Chine, beyond which is a considerable ravine known as Great Durley Chine, approached from the shore by Durley Cove. The larger combe consists of slopes of sand and gravel, with soft sand hummocks at the base; while on the western side and plateau is a mass of heather and gorse. Beyond Great Durley Chine is Alum Chine, the largest opening on this line of coast. Camden refers to it as "Alom Chine Copperas House".

The views from the plateaux between the Chines are very beautiful, especially perhaps that from Branksome Chine, where a large portion of the Branksome Tower estate seems to be completely isolated by the deep gorges of the Chine. This estate extends for a considerable distance to where a Martello tower, said to have been built with stones from Beaulieu Abbey, stands on the cliff, from which point the land gradually diminishes in height until, towards the entrance to Poole Harbour, it becomes a jumbled and confused mass of low and broken sand-hills. These North Haven sand-hills occupy a spit of land forming the enclosing arm of the estuary on this side. Near Poole Head the bank is low and narrow; farther on it expands until, at the termination of North Haven Point, it is one-third of a mile broad. Here the sand-dunes rise in circular ridges, resembling craters, many reaching a height of fifty or sixty feet. Turning Haven Point, the view of the great sheet of water studded with green islands and backed by the purple hills of Dorset is one of the finest in England. From Haven Point one may reach Poole along a good road that skirts the shores of the harbour all the way, and affords some lovely vistas of shimmering water and pine-clad banks.

Poole Harbour looks delightful from Haven Point. At the edge of Brownsea Island the foam-flecked beach glistens in the sun. The sand-dunes fringing the enclosing sheet of water are yellow, the salt-marshes of the shallow pools stretch in surfaces