Notices respecting Ne'w Books. 443 



Mr. Mantell next proceeds to a detailed account, occupying fifty 

 pages, of the strata enumerated in tlie foregoing table, which is illus- 

 trated by a geological map and sections, and also by a view of a quarry 

 in Tilgate Forest, forming the frontispiece to the work. 



In the beginning of the second part, he observes : " Before we enter 

 upon the description of the fossils of Tilgate Forest, let us for a mo- 

 ment consider what would be the nature of an estuary, formed by a 

 mighty river, flowing in a tropical climate over sandstone rocks and 

 argillaceous strata, through a country clothed with palms, arborescent 

 ferns, and the usual vegetable productions of equinoctial regions, and 

 inhabited by turtles, crocodiles, and other amphibious reptiles ? In 

 such a deposit we should expect to find sand more or less consolidated 

 with layers of clay and silt : containing water-worn fragments of the 

 harder portions of the rocks in the form of pebbles or gravel ; bones, 

 teeth, and scales, more or less rolled, of the amphibiae that had lived 

 and died on the borders of the river ; the branches and stems, and 

 leaves of the vegetables that grew on its banks, intermingled with 

 fresh water shells, and a small proportion of marine productions ; a 

 few bones of aquatic birds might also probably be observed : — the 

 strata of Tilgate Forest present precisely such characters, and such an 

 assemblage of animal and vegetable remains." 



The strata of Tilgate Forest, as may be seen in the Tabular View, 

 belong to the formation recently denominated by Dr. Fitton " the 

 Hastings Sands;" formerly designated as the Iron-sand formation. 

 Thev consist of the following principal members : " Sand and friable 

 sandstone, of various shades of green, yellow, and ferruginous ; sur- 

 face oftentimes deeply furrov/ed : Tilgate stone, very fine compact 

 bluish or greenish grey sandstone, in lenticular masses ; surface often- 

 times covered with mamillary concretions ; the lower beds frequently 

 conglomeritic, and containing large quartz pebbles : Clay or Marl of 

 a bluish grey colour, alternating with sand, sandstone, and shale." 



The vegetable remains of these strata are first described. They 

 consist of the petrified trunks of large plants, belonging to that tribe 

 of vegetables of the ancient world which is so common in the carbo- 

 niferous strata, and appears to have held an intermediate place be- 

 tween the E(fu'iseti and the Palms ; of the stems of a gigantic mono- 

 cotyledonous vegetable, bearing some analogy to the Cacti and Eu- 

 phorbicE ; the foliage of ferns, and the stalks of arundinaceous plants. 

 Of these, five are described at length ; viz. Clathraria Lyellii, Mantell ; 

 C. anomaia, Geol. Trans. N. S. i. 423, belonging to the same tribe as 

 the Lcpidodendron of Sternberg ; Endogeniles erosa, allied to the 

 Palms ; Hyinenopteris psdotiJes, an elegant fern, referred by A. Brong- 

 niart to his Sphanoptcris ; Pecopteris reticulata, another fern, ap- 

 proaching to the tropical Ncphrodia ; and Carpal ilhus ManteUii, a 

 rare fossil fruit, resembling the grains or kernels of some kinds of 

 palms, such as the areca. The shells found in the Tilgate strata occur 

 for the most part in the state of casts ; they consist of species of the 

 genera Cyrcna, Unto, Mya, Paludina, and yivipara. The remains 

 of fishes consist of the detached bones, teeth, and scales, of several 

 kinds ; but as no united part of the skeletons, or of the scaly coverings 

 3 L2 has 



