By the Eev. John Adams. 273 



teeth, and vertebrae of fish. Where the formation is better exposed, 

 as at Heme Bay and the Isle of Sheppey, organic remains have 

 been discovered in such profusion and perfection, that we are en- 

 abled to describe the characteristics of the fauna and flora which 

 flourished under those skies, when the clay was deposited. Let us 

 endeavour in imagination to clothe those fossils with flesh and 

 blood, and to picture to ourselves the strange scene which would 

 have met our gaze if we could have stood for a few moments on 

 the top of Inkpen beacon at that remote epoch. 



We look down on the western shore of a wide sea, which stretches 

 away eastward to the horizon, a sea deep as the Atlantic, and teem- 

 ing with life — sharks, larger than any which now exist, prey upon 

 myriads of creatures that people the waters — turtles, of which no 

 less than ten species have been found, bask upon the sands. Here 

 and there clusters of bright coral gem the haunts of innumerable 

 Crustacea, and graceful nautili adorn the placid bosom of the sea. 

 Crocodiles, difierent from any now alive, but resembling those 

 which infest the rivers of Borneo, slumber on the sand banks. 

 Strange quadrupeds, not unlike the tapir of South America, gambol 

 on the plains. Trees of palm and other fruits, like those which 

 flourish in the spice islands of the tropics, clothe the hill slopes 

 with beauty : whilst birds, which look like the ancestors of our 

 vultures, stalk proudly along the sandy shore ; and monkeys, 

 with other animals of sunny climes, make the tangled vallies 

 resound with their undisturbed merriment. 



" Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer from the crag ; 

 Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree, — 

 Summer isles of Eden lying in dark -purple spheres of sea." 



For countless ages the same plants and animals continued to 

 flourish ; and the ocean ceased not to ebb and flow at the base of 

 those chalk hills. Some idea of the vast duration of the period 

 may be formed from the fact first mentioned, that in certain places 

 where the sediment which was then deposited remains undisturbed, 

 it now lies in beds upwards of 400 feet in thickness. During the 

 whole of this epoch there went on, it is supposed, a constant sinking 

 of the land in this portion of the earth's crust ; for in certain parts 



