of Tertiary Deposits. 54*1 



from the number of elephants' bones and teeth which become 

 entangled in their nets. Mr. Woodward supposes that the 

 grinders of at least 500 elephants have been fished up off the 

 oyster-bed at Happisburgh # ; and, from the numbers which I 

 have seen, I have no reason to think this calculation is exag- 

 gerated. I do not now propose enquiring whence this prodi- 

 gious accumulation of fossils has been derived, or to what 

 geological epoch they should be referred : it is sufficient for 

 my present purpose to feel satisfied that they are the remains 

 of beings belonging to a remote era, which are becoming 

 entombed, covered with the balani and zoophytes that now 

 inhabit the German Ocean. These are facts which, I presume, 

 will not be disputed ; and yet so entirely has the operation of 

 existing causes in this respect been overlooked, that Mr. 

 Lyell fully concurs in the assumption that, in undisturbed 

 stratified deposits, the embedded organic remains must neces- 

 sarily have existed contemporaneously; and, upon this evidence 

 solely, important conclusions have been formed respecting the 

 bones of elephants, associated with the shells of existing spe- 

 cies of Mollusca, in a deposit in Yorkshire." f 



The next point adverted to in the paper is the presence of 

 secondary fossils in the upper or red crag. During the forma- 

 tion of this deposit, causes similar to those now in existence 

 appear to have been in operation ; and effects have there been 

 produced which exactly correspond with the author's deduc- 

 tions, as to the nature of the formations at this time in progress 

 round some parts of the British coast. 



This introduction of secondary shells in the tertiary beds 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk has been detected solely by an atten- 

 tion to lithological characters ; and the evidence derived from 

 this source is no longer available, when there is reason to 

 suspect an admixture of organic remains belonging, exclusively, 

 to rocks of the supra-cretaceous series. 



The species which are common to the chalk and red crag 

 are very few, when compared with those which are common 

 to the red crag and to the subjacent tertiary strata. In the 

 latter case, however, we have no means of ascertaining whether 

 those individual species which occur in separate formations 



* A village on the Norfolk coast, between Cromer and Winterton. 



\ " That these quadrupeds, and the indigenous species of Testacea asso- 

 ciated with them, were all contemporary inhabitants of Yorkshire (a fact 

 of the greatest importance in geology), has been established by unequivocal 

 proofs, by the Rev. W. V. Vernon, who caused a pit to be sunk to the 

 depth of more than 200 ft. through undisturbed strata, in which the remains 

 of the mammoth were found embedded together with the shells, in a de- 

 posit which had evidently resulted from tranquil waters." (LyeWs Geology, 

 vol. i. p. 96. edit. 1.) 



RB 3 



