70 



page 290) are tlie earliest representatives iu this district of the 

 new order of things. In the Lower Oolite some very small mar- 

 supial animals seem to have been called into existence, "which 

 like the coming events that cast their shadows before them, form 

 the advance guard of the gigantic animals that culminatpd in the 

 Middle Tertiary period. It is difficult to imderstand how the 

 first small and feeble creatures could have defended themselves 

 against the huge and numerous reptiles that were their contem- 

 poraries, had it not been specially so designed by the Creator. 

 There is in it this moral significance that warm-blooded creatures 

 possessing affections for their young, akin to those which in the 

 human race take a higher form of love, were specially protected, 

 thus constituting a hopeful type in nature of the future and final 

 triumph of gentle natures. AVhilst we contemplate these things 

 we perceive in the process of geological fulfilment, the promise, 

 " Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Any 

 paper, whatever its merits, on the Tertiaries of Kent, would fail 

 in illustration without a reference to the well- arranged and 

 admirable collection of local fossils, in the private museum of Gt. 

 Dowker, Esq., F.G.S., of Stourmouth. 



After the Bagshot Sands which partly cover the London Clay 

 of the Isle of Shei^pey, there is no other geological record in the 

 district, except the gravels and brick- earths ca^jping some of the 

 hills and lining the lower portions of the valleys, and some 

 obscure beds occurring in patches along the ridge of the chalk 

 escarpment and occupying an elevation of from four to six hun- 

 dred feet above the sea. A silicious ironstone belonging to these 

 beds, containing about 24 per cent, of iron, is found along the 

 North Downs, notably above Folkestone, at Paddlesworth, 

 Postling, Hastingleigh, at Wye Downs, and Penny Pot. In 

 a sand-pipe, near Lenham, a few fossils have been found, but 

 their imperfect condition has not enabled geologists to determine 

 to which tertiary period they belong. Mr. Whitaker regards 

 them as overlapping Woolwich or Old Haven beds. (Proceed- 

 ings of Geological ."^ociety, 1866, page 401.) Prestwich thinks 

 they may belong to the Crag. Lyell on the other hand believes 

 them to be Miocene. (Lyell's Elements, 233.) Mr. James Eeid 

 drew attention to this formation and exhibited some fossils 

 obtained from Lenham, in March, 1877. The fossils were 

 similar to those of the Eed Crag. Mention was also made by 

 the same gentleman of remains of ancient iron-works and slag 

 heaps, the slag containing a larger per centage than the ore 

 itself. It is to be regretted that no record has been kept of these 

 interesting remarks. With the exception of these ironstone 

 beds a great gap occurs between the Lower Eocene and Pleisto- 

 cene, to use a simile, as if several volumes had been removed 

 from an extensive work such as an enclyclopedia, the earlier 



