222 SauWs Essay on the Coincidence, tyc. 



great masses of rock-salt found in this formation are considered 

 to be a deposition from a salt-water ocean. 



In the next stratum, the variegated or red marl, the fossils 

 are chiefly terrestrial, indicating an approach towards a warm 

 climate. This our author thinks he finds in the great lias 

 formation, in which are remains of saurian reptiles, fishes of 

 the ocean and rivers, land vegetables, corals, Pentacrinites, 

 JVautili, fossil wood, and Plagiostoma, Pinnae, and many other 

 Testacea. 



In the lower oolite, our author finds a preponderance of 

 the ocean over the land, from there being none but marine 

 remains. 



In the upper oolite, the coralline and Portland oolite, he 

 finds a warm climate, with its corresponding fossils, as the 

 Zamia of the African forests, and large fossil trees ; in the 

 coral rag he finds the marine productions of the tropics ; and 

 in the Purbeck strata, the turtles and shells of the land and 

 fresh water. The Hastings beds he considers to be terrestrial. 



In the green sand, and in the gault, he finds the climate 

 getting colder, and proofs of a marine origin. The same 

 origin is attributable to the chalk. 



At the period of the London clay, he supposes that the 

 waters had retired, except from the valleys, which were 

 tidal lakes, as evidenced by the remains of crocodiles, iVautili, 

 turtles, fishes, Testacea and Crustacea, fossilised wood, with 

 plants and seeds of a moderately warm climate, like that of the 

 North of Africa. 



From that period to the present, the author attempts to 

 collect evidence of alternation in climate, and of the land 

 being, at alternate periods, covered with water, and dry. In 

 this part of his subject the author is not very successful ; at 

 which we do not wonder : the whole of the tertiary geology 

 of England much needs to be remodelled. 



The remarkable alternate change of character in the British 

 strata has necessarily attracted some attention with geologists ; 

 but no one has hitherto brought forward the same theory as 

 Mr. Saull ; and they have been contented with endeavouring 

 to account for the existence of a warm climate at one former 

 period. Mr. Saull thinks that, in astronomy, he has both an 

 explanation and a proof of his views, and he adopts an opinion 

 which was zealously supported by Sir Richard Phillips ; that, 

 in the northern and southern hemispheres, there is an alter- 

 nate increase and diminution of the waters of the earth, in 

 successive periods of 25,800 years, being those of the preces- 

 sion of the equinoxes, and arising from the same cause. 



He supposes that he has established the proof of the change 



