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cent. This, together with difficulties respecting right of way 

 and cost of transport to Faversham or Whitstable, caused it to 

 be abandoned. At Shottenden Hill the pebbles with fine sand 

 attain a thickness of thirty feet. The commencement of the Old 

 Haven beds in many places may be distinctly made out by a 

 peculiar purple coloured band. This may be very distinctly seen 

 in the road cutting near the Vicarage, Hcrnhill. A walk of 

 about ten miles from Shottenden (readily reached from the 

 Selling station), imder the hill side covered by the woods of the 

 Old Blean Forest, past Boughton and Hernhill to Whitstable, 

 will jarove a pleasantly instructive walk to the geologist, and a 

 delightful one to the lover of the picturesque. Perhaj^s there 

 is no season of the year when it can be seen to a greater advan- 

 tage than in October, when the autumnal tints have given 

 colouring to the richly wooded hills, which the geologist on as- 

 cending will find to command lovely glimpses of the distant sea. 

 The conical hill known as the Sugar Loaf and two or three 

 similar ones wiU be found to be capped by the. Old Haven beds. 

 These hj resisting denudation have preserved the softer ones 

 below them, while the uncovered beds form vallej's of excava- 

 tion. From such points of vicAV the loftier range of hills on 

 which stands Dunkirk church and the Forest of the Blean, will 

 naturally lead the thoughts of the geologist to the London Clay 

 of which their mass is formed, together with the Isle of Shepjjey, 

 where it has a thickness of four hundred and fifty feet. This is 

 a much more homogeneous deposit than the Tlianet sands, or 

 Woolwich beds. Probably deposited in a deeper sea the strati- 

 fication would be less disturbed by currents and the action of the 

 waves, the latter having seldom much efltect at a greater depth 

 than forty feet. The proximity of some great river is stiU ap- 

 parent, draining a continent whose climate must have been 

 tropical, judging from the fossils allied to palm nuts, custard 

 apples, gourds, acacia fruits, &c. Dr. Hooker mentions palm 

 nuts floating in such quantities on some of the branches of the 

 Ganges, as to greatly obstruct the paddlewheels of steamers. 

 When we remember the great luxuriance of the vegetation within 

 the tropic, we have an additional reason for concluding the 

 abundant vegetable remains of the London Clay to be due to an 

 elevated temperature. The animal remains consisting of several 

 species of crocodiles, turtles and thick skinned animals allied 

 to the tapir, and also a sea snake, thirteen feet long, lead us 

 to the same conclusion. Lyell remarks that as the turtles and 

 crocodiles must have resorted to the land to laj^ their eggs, these 

 animal remains could not have been deposited at a great distance 

 from the shore. The molluscs, Voluta, Conus, Cyprea, &c., also 

 bear testimony to the high temperature that then prevailed. 

 Large quantities of wood, belonging to a tree said to be allied 



