August 31, 1882] 



NATURE 



423 



the sea. This encroachment and destruction during the past 800 

 years has been very extensive. 



The creek called Pagham Harbour, on the south-east side of 

 the Bill or peninsula, was due to an irruption before the year 

 1345, when 2,700 acres of land were de-troyed. The site of the 

 ancient cathedral and episcopal palace of Selsea, believed to have 

 been situated to the south-east of the present ehurch of Pagham, 

 is no longer to be determined, but there is no reason to doubt 

 but that it stood nearly a mile out in what is now sea. Camden, 

 in his "Britannia," states that "in this isle remaineth only the 

 dead carcase as it were, of that ancient little citie (where those 

 bishops (of Selsea) had their seat), hidden quite with water at 

 every tide, but at low water evident and plain to be seen." 



The Bishop's Park, as the shore and sands are still called, 

 extended for many acres on the south-east coast, and the remain- 

 ing fragment has still the name of Park Coppice. The sea has 

 gained more than a mile on this coast since the >ee and cathedral 

 of Selsea was establi-hed, A. D. 680 ; Wilfred was the first Bishop 

 of Selsea in that year, and Stigand was the first Bishop of 

 Chichester, A.D. 1070. No less than twenty- two Bishops had 

 occupied the episcopal chair of Selsea, and resided there, before 

 the removal to Chichester. The pari-h that divides Selsea from 

 Bognor is called Pagham, and the extensive estuary, which is a 

 mile long and broad in places, Pagham Harbour. The remark- 

 able church is dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, and the ruins 

 of the archiepi^copal palace are still visible south-east of the 

 church. Archbishop Becket resided here with a large retinue, 

 and his interference with a manor within his lordship, gave rise 

 to his dissension with Henry II. which terminated in his assas- 

 sination. That part of the coast marked " the Park," now 

 covered by the sea, was part of the prelate's extensive estate, 

 and is still visible at low water. The houses of the village are 

 built of an arenaceous limestone almost entirely made up of 

 microscopical shells, of the genera Miliola and Alveolina. This 

 stone was formerly procured abundantly from an extensive range 

 or ledge of rocks (calls the Clibs and Mixen) south of Selsea 

 Bill, and extending some distance east and west. In 1830 the 

 removal of this bed of stone was forbidden, forming as it did 

 and does, a barrier to the encroachment of the sea. 



This digression and somewhat archaeological dissertation is 

 necesary for my purpose, when drawing your attention to those 

 recent geological changes that have taken place along that coa-t 

 almost within modern times. 



Thorney, Ham, and Medmeney marches, behb d Bracklesham 

 Bay, and between Bracklesham and Selsea, are of marine or 

 estuarine origin, separating Selsea from the mainland, making it 

 what its name expresses, an isiand, "Seles-en," or "Island of 

 the Sea-calf." We are thus led to believe that when Selsea 

 became known to the English nation it was an island, and that 

 in Bede's time the process of silting up the estuary must have 

 commenced, and the completion of this process would seem to 

 have been before the Conquest. The action of the tides on this 

 coast carries the s^ud and shingle from west to enst, therefore the 

 gradual wasting which has taken place on the shore of Brack- 

 lesham Bay has served to supply a large portion of the material 

 of which these marshes are formed. 



The ground on which Selsea, Bognor, Littlehampton, Worth- 

 ing, and other places on the Sussex coast westward of Brighton 

 are built, is of very recent formation, being composed of gravels, 

 sands, and loam belonging to the post-Pleiocene or Pleistocene 

 series. These superficial post-Pleiocene beds overlie the well- 

 known Eocene series in patches, and contain a large fauna. No 

 less than 66 genera and 142 species, chiefly mollusca, occur here. 

 The remains of the mammoth or elephant (£. primigenius, or 

 antiquum) occur in the muddy deposits [mud-deposit]. With 

 these are associated marine shells of existing species, but some 

 not known now as such on the Sussex coast. East of Bognor, 

 at low tides we have the remains of a sunken forest, and west of 

 Selsea the trunks and roots of trees, &c, may be examined at 

 low water. These trees in both areas are not fossilized, but 

 evidently destroyed by the encroachment of the sea, probably 

 since the time when "the Park " existed. In July, 1877, Mr. 

 H. Willett, of Brighton, obtained from the beach below high- 

 water mark, near East Wittering, a large number of bones of 

 rhinoceros associated with several species of land and freshwater 

 shells of existing species. The bones lay in the midst of decayed 

 trees in a peaty deposit beneath the glacial beds of Selsea. An 

 almost perfect skeleton of the Elephas antiquus is in the Museum 

 at Chichester, which was obtained from the " mud beds " or 

 "mud deposit" off Selsea Bill ; multitudes of the shell Pholas 



crispata, occur in the same bed. Teeth of the mammoth have 

 occurred in the "mud deposits" of Bognor, Littlehampton, and 

 Worthing ; and we have again the well-known " Elephant bed" 

 at Brighton, doubtless of the same age. 



At the British Association meeting in 1851, Mr. Godwin- 

 Austen, F.R.S., then president of the Geological Section, called 

 attention to the evidence of repeated oscillations of level of no 

 very remote date which were to be observed in parts of the 

 coast of Cornwall, Devon, the Channel Islands, and the Cotentin, 

 an area comprising the western opening of the English Channel. 

 As before stated, the same distinguished physicist, four years 

 later, in his paper "On the newer Tertiary Deposits of the 

 Sussex Coast," exhaustively described the phenomena of the 

 later movements of the land, and interchanges between the sea 

 and the coast. The oldest of the newer-Tertiary deposits of the 

 Sussex levels in ascending order is to be seen only at extreme 

 low-water in Bracklesham Bay ; thence eastward round Selsea 

 Bill, as far as the entrance into Pagham Harbour. 



This portion of the Sussex series forms the "mud-deposit "of 

 Mr. Dixon. Its character and composition distinguish it from 

 the beds above. Is is composed of an extremely fine tenacious 

 dark grey sandy mud, which resists the action of the sea ; it 

 rests upon the well-known Eocene Nummulitic strata. 



The thickness of this Lutraria clay or " mud-deposit," can 

 only be estimated at low-water spring tides ; in places it is from 

 18 to 20 feet thick ; it increases seawards and passes away be- 

 neath the seabed. On the coast near Medmeney (west side of 

 the Bill) the surfjee of this clay is occupied by the remains of 

 a colony of Pholas crispata, which has burrowed into it. This 

 species attains here to great dimensions, and from its restricted 

 range and littoral habit serves to determine the level of the tidal 

 waters ut the commencement of the Selsea deposits. The relative 

 age of this old estuarine deposit of Selsea is determined by its 

 mammalian remains. Those of Elephas primigenins are toler- 

 ably abundant, and the interest attached to them is enhanced by 

 the fact that they do not occur here as single and detached teeth, 

 or portions of tusks (as occurs on the higher gravels), but so 

 many ] arts have been found together as to leave no doubt but 

 that entire skeletons still lie embedded in this deposit. The 

 head with the teeth and tusks and numerous bones have been 

 found in close juxtaposition, and are now placed in the Chichester 

 Museum. No less than sixty-six geneia and 151 species of 

 mollusca have been found here, or thirty-tbree genera and 

 eighty-nine species of gasteropoda, and thirty-three genera and 

 sixty-two species of pelycipoda, have been obtained from the 

 Lutraria clay or "mud-bed." I may mention, among so many, 

 the rarer shells that occur. 



Cerithium rcticulatum, da Costa. = C lima Brug. — A Spanish, 

 Portuguese, and Mediterranean shell, comparatively recent 

 within our arei. 



Fusus turricula (Pleurotoma). — A boreal Atlantic species, 

 occurs in the Red crag. Scarce in the Faluns and Bridlington. 



Pecten polymorphus, Bronn. — Lisbon, Mediterranean, very rare 

 fossil in Italian and Sicilian beds. 



Tapes decussata, ranges south but not north of British Islands. 

 Commnn in the Mediterranean. 



Lutraria 1 ugosa. — Algeria and Morocco (living), also Canaries. 

 South of Spain and Portugal. 



Syndosma Boysii (Amphidesma). — Atlantic ; rare ; ranges to 

 coast of Spain. 



Pholas crispata Linn. — Rare on south coast of England, a 

 Scandinavian species, and is found in the Crag. 



From " the assemblage ol mollusca, and the patch of Pholas 

 crispata in conjunction with conditions of the deposit, we may 

 infer that the relation of the land to sea-level was then much 

 what it is now, or that these ledges of mud-beds in which this 

 shell is found, then lay between tides." Many of the bivalve 

 mollusca (1'eylicipoda) lived in and on this mud, which is evident 

 from the position in which the shells are now found, especially 

 the My<e, Lutraria, and Pullastra (Tapes)." "This area," 

 according to the views of Mr. Godwin-Austen, "must have been 

 an enclosed salt-water lagoon. The list of shells must be con- 

 sidered a special one, the result of local conditions subordinate 

 to, but indicative of a much larger marine fauna which had its 

 full development in some adjacent sea," and this fauna as a whole 

 differed as much from that of the present Channel waters, as the 

 fossil contents of the Selsea mud-deposits do from the mollusca 

 now inhabiting the series of large creeks and lagoons extending 

 from Fareham to Pagham." As regards the molluscan fauna of 

 Selsea, some of which, now found on the Sussex coast, are es- 



