BLUE MUD. 69 



esque, I often clamber down in this direction 

 for my daily stroll, particularly when, as is 

 the case to-day^ the rain has had time to 

 trickle through the yellow rock, and the sun 

 then shines full against its face, to light it up 

 with a rich flood of golden splendour. 



The base of the cliffs consists entirely of 

 a very soft and plastic blue lias mud. This 

 mud contains large numbers of fossils, chiefly 

 chambered shells, but mixed with not a few 

 relics of the great swimming and flying 

 lizards that swarmed among the shallow flats 

 or low islands of the lias sea. When the blue 

 mud was slowly accumulating in the hollows 

 of the ancient bottom, these huge saurians 

 formed practically the highest race of animals 

 then existing upon earth. There were, it is 

 true, a few primaeval kangaroo-mice and wom- 

 bats among the rank brushwood of the main- 

 land ; and there may even have been a species 

 or two of reptilian birds, with murderous- 

 looking teeth and long lizard-like tails 

 descendants of those problematical creatures 



