144 



the series. The first remains recorded from these strata were 

 discovered in the neighbourhood of Hastings by Messrs. W. R. and 

 H. Binfield. They consisted of a few minute elytra and fragments 

 of Neuropterous wings, and were obtained in the courses of iron- 

 stone exposed near low water mark, at a place called the 

 " Govers," near St. Leonards-on-Sea. Above the course of the 

 ironstone, in a bed of dark coloiired shale, many elytra were 

 found, as well as traces of wings of Coleoptera, Neuroptera, and 

 Diptcra. A few fragments of Coleopterous elytra have also been 

 discovered in the Wealden marlstone, from between Tonbridge and 

 Maidstone, and are mentioned by Dr. Mantell. In the proceedings 

 of the Geological Society for 1854, Professor "Westwood alludes to 

 the discovery, by Professor Edward Forbes, of some traces of fossil 

 insects in the Hastings series of the Isle of Wight, and of a few 

 doubtful specimens, Ijy Mr. W. R. Brodie, in the Wealden series 

 of Punfield Bay Swanage. 



Upper Oolite. 

 PuRBECK Bed.s. 

 In Mr. P. B. Brodie's valuable and interesting work on 

 " The Fossil Insects of the Secondary Rocks of England," these 

 beds are referred to the Wealden formation; but modem 

 geologists are of opinion that in consequence of the organic 

 remains discovered therein, the Purbeck series has a close afiinity 

 to the Oolitic group. It may, therefore, be considered the newest 

 or uppermost member of that formation, instead of the oldest or 

 lowest member of the Wealden formation. The " Purbeck beds '' 

 are of freshwater origin, and are so named from the Peninsula 

 of Purbeck in Dorsetshire, in the cliffs of which they were first 

 studied. These beds are of but limited geographical extent in 

 Europe, but they are of great geological importance, on account of 

 the succession of* three distinct sets of fossU remains which 

 they contain, these again difiering from the fossils of the 



* "Lyell's Elements," 6th edition, p. 377, and see a paper on the 

 Dorsetshire Purbecks, by Professor Edward Forbes, British Association, 

 Edinburgh, 1850. 



