26G 



very uniform depth (nearly three inches), and almost perfectly ho- 

 rizontal. They are covered by a bed of dark-brown sandy clay, 

 from two to three feet thick, and rest on a deposit of the same sub- 

 stance, which closely resembles the mud spread over the present 

 beach. The shells are all of one species, the cockle, or Cardium 

 edule, and of various sizes down to the most minute. They are 

 mixed with a portion of the clay which covers them, but lie so com- 

 pactly, that they present to the eye the appearance of a layer of 

 chalk nodules. Very few of them are fractured, and the two valves 

 are generally united. The openings reach within 12 or 15 yards 

 of the high-water line ; but the number of broken shells seen on the 

 beach shews that the bed had once extended farther northward, and 

 that part of it has been cut away by the sea. The bed is at present 

 about the level of high water, or a little above it, while the natural 

 abode of the cockle, according to Mr Broderip, is from the low-water 

 line to a depth of 13 fathoms. The continuity of the bed, its re- 

 gular level, its remarkable uniformity, its composition confined to a 

 single species, and the state of the shells, which are generally entire, 

 and have the two valves united, shew that they are in their native 

 locality, and prove that they could only have been brought to their 

 present position by an upheaval of the land. This upheaval must 

 have been to the extent at least of 18 feet, which is the differ- 

 ence betwixt high and low water, but very probably it was to 

 the extent of 20, 30, or 40 feet. Inundations of the sea, caused 

 by storms, have been called in to account for such deposits, but 

 in my opinion very inconsiderately. That a sudden and violent 

 movement of the sea should sweep away a bed of shells fi-om its ori- 

 ginal locality, is intelligible enough; but that, while transporting 

 them over some hundred feet or yards, it should preserve them un- 

 broken, with the valves still united, — that the rushing water, in- 

 stead of ploughing up the dry land it invaded, should smooth and 

 level an area of more than an acre, then spread out the shells upon 

 it with mathematical regularity, in an uninterrupted stratum of 

 nearly uniform depth, — that, finally, it should cover them with a 

 bed of clay two or three feet thick, and then withdraw ; — these seem 

 to me to be effects utterly irreconcileable with the known agency of 

 floods. I would as soon believe that the West India hurricane, instead 

 of levelling the planter's house, transports it en masse, with its walls, 

 roof, and furniture all entire, from one end of a field to the other. 



