THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. II. 



No. III.— MARCH, 1895. 



I.— On a Collection op Fossils from the Lower Geeensand 

 OF Great Chart, in Kent. 



By J. W. Gregory, D.Sc, F.G.S. : 

 of the British Museum (Natural History), 



1. The Lov/er Greensand of Great Chart. 



2. List of the Fossils. 



3. Affinities of the Fauna. 



4. The value of the Sandgate Fauna. 



5. The Synchronism of parts of the Gault and the Lower Greensand. 



I. The Lower Greensand of Great Chart. 



THE rarity and imperfect preservation of the fossils in the upper 

 part of the Lower Greensand, in the south-east of England, 

 has always added considerably to the difficulties in the study oT that 

 series. The Atherfield Clay and the Hythe Beds both have well- 

 niarked faunas, though fossils are often absent from the latter. 

 The paljBontological evidence is, however, much less satisfactory in 

 the case of the two uppermost of the four divisions into which the 

 Lower Greensand is usually divided. A fair number of fossils 

 occurs in these at Folkestone, but further to the west the lithological 

 nature of the beds changes, and fossils are found in but few localfties. 



In the " Geology of the Weald " Mr. Topley recorded (p. 129) 

 11 species from a quarry at Great Chart, near Ashford. The horizon 

 was assigned to that of the Sandgate Beds because the fossils occur 

 overlying the Kentish Rag, or limestones of the Hythe stage. As 

 this is the westernmost point in Kent at which fossiliferous 

 representatives of the Sandgate Beds are said to occur, the locality 

 is an important one. I therefore made a collection of its fossils 

 in the winter of 1889-1890, both in order that the fauna might be 

 represented in the British Museum Collection, and in the hope of 

 getting more information as to the pal^ontological value of the 

 Sandgate Beds. The fossils occur mainly as internal casts; their 

 identification is accordingly difBcult and unsatisfactory; but as the 

 collection includes over 140 specimens, it has been possible to fit 

 together the evidence of several specimens of the same species, and 

 thus to determine the most important characters. 



The quarry from which the fossils have come is situated a little 

 to the south of an old moated house— Singleton Manor. The 

 workings are carried on for the Kentish Eag, of which 30 feet are 



DECADE IV. — VOL. II. — NO. III. 7 



