49 



contrive to live in brackish waters, or in saltwater commixed with a large 

 proportion of fresh. A specimen of a given plant, gathered in pure salt 

 water, and placed by the side of the same plant taken from braclash 

 streams, would only be recognized as identical by an experienced botanist 

 conversant with the method of gradation. The waters of the ocean then, 

 when reduced in their due quantity of saline matter, have, undemably, the 

 power of dwarfing the marine forms of animal and vegetable life, and 

 seem to have done so here ; transmitting us a puny diminutive fauna 



On a retrospect of this outline of the communis zone as exemplified at 

 Churchdown, we cannot scruple to admit that these beds, reduced as they 

 are by erosion to narrow dimensions, still retain considerable attractions 

 for the scientfically disposed, and are not only poor in orgamc contents, 

 but Uttle short of typical, synchronizing well with the same zone in very 

 remote parts of the Continent, as well as in localities near our own 

 district. This is true of the Somersetshire beds, of those in the Calvados, 

 Wurtemberg, and the south-west of Germany. In fact, in every country, 

 according to that distinguished geologist, M. Feass, tHs subdivision, so 

 sharply and distinctly divided from the Spinatus beds or Marlstone series 

 forms " a good geological horizon." 



