468 Scientific Intelligence, Sfc. 



have been derived ; or that, at all events, their worn appearance 

 would distinguish them from the more recent MoUilsca with which 

 they are associated. This is so far from being the case, that con- 

 siderably finer and more perfect specimens of the Voluta Lamberti 

 can be picked up on the sea shore, where they have been dashed by the 

 waves upon a shingly beach, than can ever be obtained from the 

 beds of the crag formation itself. In fact, this gradual process of 

 degradation appears, in many instances, to be of all others the most 

 favourable for detaching organic remains from the matrix in which 

 they are embedded ; and, with respect to the evidence that might 

 possibly be supposed to arise from a difference in lithological character, 

 it should be remembered, that even if such indications did exist, by 

 the time these new deposits become accessible, every vestige of the 

 crag will have disappeared. There will, consequently, be nothing 

 to excite the slightest suspicion that the crag species are not con- 

 temporaneous with all the organic remains associated with them. 

 In adopting this line of argument, I am, of course, supposing that 

 the geologists of a future epoch have the same amount of information 

 respecting the history of the tertiary deposits of those days that we 

 have of our own, and not that a geological record of events has been 

 continued up to that period. 



'* To a certain amount, then, this admixture of fossil with recent 

 shells, even in regular stratified deposits, cannot be denied ; but it 

 may be urged that it takes place only under peculiar circumstances, 

 and to such a limited extent as would never interfere with the 

 accuracy of general inductions founded upon extended research and 

 careful practical observation. 



'^ If, however, we enlarge our field of observation, we shall find 

 that a process has been going forward, attended with similar results, 

 over a tract, the superficial extent of which far exceeds that occupied 

 by the whole of the crag formation. The bed of the ocean, all along 

 the coasts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and probably as far as 

 Kent on the one side, and Yorkshire on the other, is strewed with 

 multitudes of the bones of extinct Mamm^ia. These remains have 

 been taken up twenty miles from ^he shore ; and, in dredging for 

 oysters, the fishermen have suffered considerable inconvenience 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 exaggerated. I do not now propose enquiring 

 whence this prodigious 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, 



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



