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CHAPTER II. 
EOCENE FORMATIONS OF SELSEY AND BRACKLESHAM BAY. 
Tue geological position of the shore at Bognor, Selsey and Brack- 
lesham Bay is of the Eocene or London clay division of Mr. Lyell’s 
arrangement of the Tertiary period. It has also been called Supra- 
cretaceous by Sir H. de la Beche, as lying immediately above the 
chalk. Mr. Lyell has termed it Eocene, as the supposed dawn or 
commencement of shells, some few of which are similar to recent 
genera. The name ‘ London clay’ is given to the argillaceous form 
of the Eocene deposits, because of its extensive development at Lon- 
don and its vicinity ; and it is a curious circumstance that London 
and Paris should be built on the same geological formation, though 
under different mineral conditions*; yet, compared to many other 
deposits, the Eocene may be considered of limited extent. It is 
principally confined in England to two districts, which are called 
the London and Hampshire basins; the London basin is considered 
to lie between the North Downs and the chalk of Cambridgeshire, 
Hertfordshire and Suffolk. The Hampshire basin may be said to 
include the continuation of the same range into Hampshire, Dorset- 
* Those of England being almost exclusively of mechanical origin,—accumulations of mud, 
sand and pebbles, while in the neighbourhood of Paris we find strata enclosing a similar assemblage 
of organic remains, but composed partly of a coarse white limestone, and partly of a compact 
siliceous limestone of great thickness, with here and there intercalated beds of crystalline gypsum, 
or pure flint —Lyell’s Elements of Geology. 
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