VOL. XXIV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 117 



which has employed the heads and pens of several learned and ingenious men. 

 1 shall therefore only make some remarks on the positive assertion of the aforesaid 

 author, concerning the imbedding of these fossil shells in this cliff, and the 

 alteration of the channel, viz. " That this bed of shells, which covers the 

 cliff, was carried thither at the making of the harbour or clearing of it. For 

 the harbour or channel there is artificial, and of no old date, the current having 

 been formerly on the other side of Languard Fort, which then stood in Essex." 

 Against the first part of which, although many reasons might be given to prove 

 the contrary, I shall only observe, that as our author begs the question. How 

 else could the shells lie at the top of this cliff? I shall also ask him, why the same 

 strata of sand, and fragments of shells, with the same fossils imbedded, are to 

 be found at Walton Ness 6n the other side of the aestuarium, which is 5 or 6 

 miles broad from Harwich, as also at Bawdfey cliff in Suffolk, which is 8 or 

 miles distant, and in other cliffs on that shore, where I have met with them, 

 A. second question may here be asked ; how it comes to pass, that none of those 

 buccina heterostropha, (whose exuviae are in such plenty in all the cliffs here- 

 abouts) are not now to be found in this channel, nor the adjacent seas ? For I 

 cannot think the clearing this harbour could have destroyed all that species of 

 shell-fish, of which there was then such plenty ; and therefore some other 

 origin must be allowed them, than what this author has assigned. Nor can I 

 allow the harbour here to be artificial, because so great a work as this is, 

 viz. the making a channel 2 miles wide, as it is in this place, would not have 

 been without some record in history ; and besides, the earth, &c. which must 

 arise from this work, must consequently have made a much greater hill than 

 the cliff ever was. And another doubt will from hence arise ; why the work- 

 men should bring all the earth, &c. to this side the channel, and not lay some 

 on the other, as it is plain they did not. The ground on which Languard 

 Fort stands, as far as Walton Coleness, which is about 3 miles, is only a sandy 

 level or beach, which I believe has in time subsided there, as may be observed 

 at the mouths of other large rivers. And as to the argument our author 

 alleges, of Languard Fort being accounted to stand in Essex, to confirm his 

 hypothesis of the change of this channel, it will be of no force with any one 

 who observes, that not only parts of parishes, but likewise of counties, are often 

 divided from those parishes and counties to which they belong, and included in 

 others ; of which many instances could be given,- e. g. a part of Kent is oir 

 the Essex side the Thames j and in Oxfordshire, the parishes of Shilton belongs 

 to Berkshire, Daylesford to Warwickshire, Compton to Gloucestershire, and 

 Stratton-Audley to Buckinghamshire, though all are included in the other"? 

 and there is a farm belonging to the parish of Braintree, which is separated^ 



