Clifton College Scientijic Society. 33 



It is difficult to sny whereabouts exactly in the Section the real 

 Ashdown Sand begins. I am inclined to think that the fiist four feet 

 belong to the Wadhurst clay, but it is quite impossible to draw a line 

 at any horizon in such rocks as these, no two sections even when very 

 near each other giving the same results. 



Mr. Keeping has kindly sent me the following list of the fossils 

 which he found : — 



Numerous vertebra of Iguahodon, Citiosaurus, and Megalosaurus ; 

 teeth of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus ; Phalanges, and coracoid of 

 Iguanodou ; teeth and vertebrae of Plesiosaurus ; teeth, vertebra3, 

 (?) femur scales, and various bones, not yet identified, of Gomopholis ; 

 dermal plates, scapula, and other bones of a Chelonian ; tooth of an 

 imknown Deinosaurian ; spines of Hybodus ; teeth and scales of 

 Lepidotus ; Coprolite ; Unio, Cyclas, Paludina, Cypris, Estheria. 



To these must be added the prints and remains of (?) Chara, 

 Equisetnm, and many ferns : one of the latter — a new species — was 

 found by my cousin, H. U. Wollaston, in the sandy shales above the 

 bone-bed. 



The greater part of the fossils we collected are now in the Wood- 

 wardian Museum, but I have brought a few, which I have collected 

 since, with me to-night. You will see how beautifully preserved the 

 fish and crocodile scales are ; and, by the size of some of the teeth, 

 you will be able to form some idea of the dimensions of the monsters 

 who bore them. 



These beds are interesting as an evidence that at former periods of 

 the history of the earth, just the same operations were going on as we 

 see around us now. At the mouth of the Ganges we know that a 

 series of beds very similar to these is being formed — layers of sand, 

 mud, and clay are deposited, containing bones of fishes, crocodiles, lions, 

 &c., and also of human beings. When we trace back the history of 

 the world, long before the Wealden epoch, we find the coal measures, 

 which were also formed in a delta. The face of the world is continually 

 changing ; races of animals and plants give place to each other ; but 

 just as sun, moon, and stai's hold on their courses in the way appoint- 

 ed for them in the beginning, so also do the same great forces and 

 the same great laws woi'k on our earth, impelled by the same great 

 worker, as they have in all the past ages through which we can half- 

 blindly grope our way. 



I hojje that the account which I have given to you this evening, of 

 our exploration of these beds, may encourage some of you in similar 

 work. It does not require any A'ast amount of geological knowledge, 

 it only requires a little patience and perseverance for any of you to 

 form a coUecticm of the f issils in any bed or series of beds in your 

 neighbourhood : you will by this means get an insight into many 

 interesting things of which yon can have little idea, and will add to 

 your knowledge of natural history in a way which is, I think, 

 unsuri)assed. 



W. J. Bean afterwards read a paper on " Locomotives," illustrated 

 by various diagrams. 



