STRATA OF TILGATE FOREST. 59 



The discussion of this subject cannot, however, be pursued in this 

 place, without leading to the anticipation of facts hereafter to be ex- 

 amined ; it will therefore be more convenient to reserve any farther ob- 

 servations to the concluding section of this volume. 



On the Analogy between the Organic Remains of the Tilgate 

 Beds, and those of Stonesfield, near Oxford. 



In the course of this inquiry, allusion has been made to the fossils of 

 the Stonesfield slate, and their general resemblance to those of the Tilgate 

 strata ; this correspondence in the organic remains of deposits, whose 

 geological relations are so entirely dissimilar, is a fact sufficiently in- 

 teresting to require some attention. 



The Stonesfield limestone is well known to belong to the middle beds 

 of the oolite, and has long been celebrated for the extraordinary character 

 of its fossils ; of which, however, no detailed account has yet appeared 

 before the public*. 



According to Dr. Kidd-j-, it contains crabs, birds, tortoises, and one or 

 more large quadrupeds ; and the Eev. W. Conybeare, in his highly in- 

 teresting memoir on the Plesiosaurus \, mentions, that it also incloses the 

 remains of " an immense saurian animal, approaching to the characters of 

 the monitor, and which, from the proportions of many of the specimens, 

 cannot have been less than forty feet long." 



With the assistance of Charles Lyell, jun. Esq. M. A. (of Bartley 

 Lodge, Hants,) and aided by an interesting collection of Stonesfield 

 fossils, for which I am indebted to his liberality, I have been able to as- 

 certain that the following organic remains occur in both deposits, viz. 



* In the second part of the fifth vol. of the Geolog. Trans, just pubhshed, Mr. Conybeare 

 states, that Professors Kidd and Buckland have been long engaged in the study of these in- 

 teresting remains, and it is expected will shortly publish the result of their observations. 



f Geological Essays, by J. Kidd, M. D. 8vo. 1815, p. 38. 



I Geological Transactions, Vol. 5. p. 592. 



I 2 



