66 TOWN GEOLOGY. [n. 



clay. But not ice-clay. Anything but that, as you 

 will see. It belongs to a formation late (geologically 

 speaking), but somewhat older than those Disco Island 

 beds. 



And what sort of fossils do we find in it ? 



In the first place, the shells, which are abundant, 

 are tropical Nautili, Cones, and suchlike. And more, 

 fruits and seeds are found in it, especially at the Isle 

 of Sheppey. And what are they? Fruits of Nipa 

 palms, a form only found now at river-mouths in 

 Eastern India and the Indian islands ; Anona-seeds ; 

 gourd-seeds ; Acacia fruits all tropical again ; and 

 Proteaceous plants too of an Australian type. Surely 

 your common sense would hint to you, that this London 

 clay must be mud laid down off the mouth of a tropical 

 river. But your common sense would be all but 

 certain of that, when you found, as you would find, 

 the teeth and bones of crocodiles and turtles, who 

 come to land, remember, to lay their eggs ; the bones, 

 too, of large mammals, allied to the tapir of India and 

 South America, and the water-hog of the Cape. If 

 all this does not mean that there was once a tropic 

 climate and a tropic river running into some sea or 

 other where London now stands, I must give up 

 common sense and reason as deceitful and useless 

 faculties ; and believe nothing, not even the evidence 

 of my own senses. 



And now, have I, or have I not, fulfilled the 

 promise which I made rashly, I dare say some of you 

 thought in my first paper ? Have I, or have I not, 

 made you prove to yourself, by your own common 

 sense, that the lowlands of Britain were underneath 

 the sea in the days in which these pebbles and boulders 



