1824.] below the Chalk, fa. 379 



From the beds below the Hastings' sands, north-west of Battle, 



Sussex. 



Cyrena media ~"| 



A thin elongated pearly bivalve j ', , 



vi °„, j "L, „i In slaty clay between the beds 



like a compressed muscle. ,. ,• •' _. , 



Potamidesventricosus?(M.C. f otlimestone, near Darvel 



341. f. 1) ! Wood ' 



Vertebra of a crocodile J 



Scales (of a fish?) large, quadrangular, imbricated : in lime 

 stone, from the same place. 



A comparison even of this shortlist with that of the green 

 sand fossils, points out a distinction between that formation, 

 and the Hastings sands, which may, perhaps, deserve attention, 

 in the grouping and arrangement of the strata : — the organized 

 productions of the former, so far as we are acquainted with them, 

 being all marine : but of the latter, almost exclusively of fresh- 

 water origin. And in fact if a line be drawn between the green 

 sand andvveald clay, the whole series, from thence downward to the 

 Portland limestone, may be regarded as one great suite of fresh- 

 water formations : — with the exception principally of those beds 

 of oysters which occur, in small proportion in the weald clay, 

 and more remarkably about the middle of the Purbeck strata,— 

 where a bed, about twelve feet in thickness, well known to the 

 quarry men under the name of " cinder," consists almost en- 

 tirely of oysters. 



The resemblance observable in the Isle of Wight, between 

 some of the beds above the chalk and some of the Hastings sands, 

 seems to favour the hypothesis, of the mixed origin, at least, of 

 the latter. The light greenish grey and variegated clay of the 

 two series, are very much alike; and among the fossils some 

 of the most abundant in both are of the genus Paludina. 

 The calcareous grit also is not without a parallel in the superior 

 beds; for the stone of East Cowes quarries, which is there called 

 1 rag,' comes very near to some varieties of the Hastings' grit;* 

 and anions; the freshwater shells which it contains is a helix 

 resembling the vivipara. — But, on the other hand, some of 

 the Hastings sand beds are scarcely to be distinguished from 

 those of the new red sand-stone (red marl). — This recurrence 

 of beds of the same character, in parts of the series which we 

 are in the habit of considering as so remote, should never be 

 lost sight off; as affording proof of that uniformity in the ope- 

 ration of the causes which have produced the strata, which the 



* When I visited this place, the pits in Lord II. Seymour's grounds had been 

 filled up, but the specimens I found there were sufficient to shew this resemblance — 

 See Webster : Letters, p. '23 1 . 



