THE CLIFFS AND THEIR STORY 



441 



strata, but from their fossil remains we 

 can picture their story. Imagine a great 

 delta covering an area of some 30,000 

 square miles, through which a broad 

 and noble ri\'er slowly flows down to an 

 ancient sea. On the flats by the river 

 there are growing Equisetums of gigantic 



beneath a body of fresh water, from which 

 sediment was thrown down. The sea 

 slowly but surely encroached, and left its 

 record in the great and consi)icuous 

 stratum, some twelve feet thick, formed 

 of a vast accumulation of fossil oyster 

 shells {Ostrca distorta), locally called the 



PART OF THE FOSSIL FOREST AT LULWOKTH CLIFFS. 

 Note the great cast of an ancient tree trunk in the foreground. 



size in the marshes, and ferns, coni- 

 ferous trees, Zamias, and Cycads on the 

 dryer grounds. Crocodiles, turtles, fish 

 and shell- dwellers {mollusca) swarmed in 

 the waters of this ancient river, while 

 small marsupial mammals lived upon 

 its banks, along with those gigantic 

 reptiles, the Iguanodon and Megalosaurus, 

 and the strange, winged, bird-reptile, 

 Pterodactyle, preyed upon the insects 

 that flitted through the warm tropical 

 air of a chmate similar to that of the 

 India of to-day. 



Very gradually this ancient delta sank 

 down and was submerged, with its forests, 



" Cinder-bed." In turn this shallow sea 

 deepened, and the chalk of which the 

 downs surrounding Lulworth Cove are 

 formed was deposited. Then the land 

 began to rise again, until the chalk, the 

 " Cinder-bed," and ancient delta have 

 assumed their present position above the 

 level of the sea. It is truly as wonderful 

 a chapter from the history of the earth 

 as we are likely to meet with, and one 

 that it is impossible to do full justice to 

 within the hmits of this article. 



All round the coasts of Great Britain 

 and Ireland the cliffs have eloquent and 

 wonderful stories to tell us, if we will 



