70 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



'trees allied to pines, and similar to the Araucaria, 

 corals and other zoophytes, nautili, ammonites, 

 belemnites, cuttles, &c. ; crustaceans allied to 

 shrimps, lobsters and crabs ; various insects and 

 numerous fishes and reptiles. 



III. The Wealden formation is next in order, 

 and extends from the interior along the coast of 

 England to the east and west of Hastings, in the 

 county of Sussex. This formation is a series of 

 fluviatile deposits of great thickness and extent, 

 and consists of alternations of clays, limestones, 

 sandstones and sand, with beds of freshwater 

 shells and crustaceans. The fossil remains pecu- 

 liar to this formation are those of enormous land 

 and aquatic reptiles* and various trees and plants. 

 The Wealden series of deposits afford the most 

 striking evidence of a vast alternation in the rela- 

 tions of land and water having occurred at the 

 remote epoch when they were deposited. All 

 the strata seem to have been deposited by the 

 waters of a great river; the organic remains are 

 chiefly, if not wholly, such as belonged to creatures 

 inhabiting fresh water, and what now forms the 

 south-eastern district of England must at a far 

 distant epoch have been the mouth of an immense 

 river flowing from a vast inland lake, the shores 

 of which were the abode of those prodigious forms 

 of animal life which the strata now disclose. 

 How difficult to realise all this while wandering 

 at the present day along the sea-shores of Sussex ! 

 How brief and transitory human life appears when 

 contrasted with the immense series of ages to 



