Proceedings. xcix. 



Mr. Flower commenced with the Thanet sand. The Thanet 

 sand was very well seen in the road going down to Beddington, 

 It was also to be seen at Duppas-hill, but the best places to 

 see it were at the cutting of the London, Brighton, and South 

 Coast Railway in Coombe-lane, and at the Coombe-lane end 

 of the new railway. No doubt the Thanet sand was essen- 

 tially a marine bed, the sand having evidently been deposited 

 in a comparatively deep sea. The result of this fact was that 

 there were very few fossils indeed found in it. He had, how- 

 ever, found a few. The bed of green sand above the Thanet 

 sand was evidently an esturial deposit, not deposited in a deep 

 sea, but deposited in a deeper sea than the beds which lay 

 immediately over it. The bed was about 15 feet thick. The 

 most interesting part of the bed was the three feet which lay 

 close over the Thanet side. Oysters, sharks' teeth, &c., were 

 found in this three feet of green sand. The greater part of the 

 oysters were free, not attached to each other, as was generally 

 the case. They seemed from their appearance to have laid 

 perfectly still at the bottom of the sea, and probably, therefore, 

 there was not a great amount of current. A singular fact was 

 the quantity of sharks' teeth that had been found there. It 

 was on the i8th December, after a heavy rain, when the side 

 of the cutting had been very much washed, that he first saw 

 a shark's tooth lying on the surface, and found about eight or 

 nine there. A very large number of these sharks' teeth had 

 been found, and he had in his boxes some 700 of them which 

 had all come out of the cutting. The finding of sharks' teeth 

 in this green sand bed was something entirely new as far as 

 he could find out. The green sand graduated into a lavender- 

 coloured sand, which was separated from the over-lying clay by a 

 sharp black band. The clay which lay over the green sand 

 was of a very peculiar description. At the Coombe-lane end 

 the bed was quite yellow, but at the other end it became a 

 deep blue. Several feet of the lower part of the clay was of a 

 beautiful mottled colour. He heard some time ago that a 

 number of bones had been found in this clay, and was rather 

 sceptical about them. He could only get one of these bones, 

 and very much doubted whether it came from this clay at all. 

 There was only one other bone he had heard about, and this 

 he had seen. He did not think there could be any doubt that 

 that came from the bed in question. It was apparently the 

 bone of a large species of deer, of the character of the extinct 

 Irish deer. There seemed no reason why there should not be 

 plenty more bones in this clay. They were probably deposited 

 by the action of rivers in a bay, and there was no reason why 

 dead animals and large pieces of wood should not be brought 

 down, the water not being very deep ; and being covered up, 



