VII. CORALS FROM THE TERTIART FORMATIONS. 



I. Corah from BrocIienJiiirst find Boydon. 



The fossiliferons bed at Brockenhurst in Hampshire was discovered diu-ing the 

 formation of a railway; it was dihgently examined, and it has produced some most interest- 

 ing raollusca and corals. 



The molluscan fauna has much in common with those of the beds in Germany about 

 Magdeburg, Bernburg, Aschersleben, Egeln, Helmstadt, and Latdorf,^ and with those of 

 the strata at Tongres, near Liege. Moreover, some of its most characteristic species are found 

 in the Middle Headon beds at Colwell Bay and at WhiteclifF Bay, in the Isle of Wiglit.^ 



The Brockenhurst bed lies immediately upon a freshwater formation,* the fossils of 

 Avhich are specifically identical with those of the freshwater beds of the Lower Headon ; 

 and it is covered by unfossiliferous sands. 



The fossils from Roydon probably came from a well. 



Corals are not found in the Middle Headon beds, but they abound at Brockenhurst; 

 and it may therefore be admitted that the strata at the latter locality are the purely marine 

 and oceanic representatives of the former.^ 



The specimens of fossil corals from Brockenhurst are tolerably perfect ; they are gene- 

 rally covered with a red argillaceous sand ; and they often contain selenite and sulphide 



1 It is necessary in using the terms "Tertiary," "Eocene," &c., to remember that there has been 

 a constant and gradual development of " species " from the first appearance of life on the globe to the 

 present day, and that the terms are only \iseful as parts of a scientific nomenclature. There is only an 

 arbitrary distinction to be made between any of the successive formations and systems. Hence I have felt 

 very disinclined to term the Brockenhurst beds Lovfer Oligocene, although they are clearly the equivalents 

 of the German beds so called by Beyrich, and of the Tongrien Inferieur of Dumont. 



- Beyrich, ' Ueber den Ziisammenhang der Norddeutschen Tertiiirbildungen, zur Erliiuterung einer 

 geologische Uebersichtskarte ; Abliandl. der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften z« Berlin,' 18jj. 



Roemer, in Dunker's ' Palfeontographiea,' 18C2, IStiJ ; Reuss, "Zur Fauna des Deutschen Oberoligo- 

 ciins," ' K. Akad. der Wiss.,' Nov. 1864. 



^ Von Koenen, "Oligocene Deposits," 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' Dec, 2nd 1863. (Mr. F. Edwards' 

 researches formed the basis of this paper.) F. Finch, Dr. Sc, has assured me of the truth of this statement 

 from the results of his personal observation. 



■• Von Koenen, op. cit. 



'■> ' Mem. Geol. Survey Great Britain,' on the "Tertiary Fluvio-marine Formation of the Isle of Wight," 

 by Edward Forbes, edited by R. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., and others, 18.i6. 'Mem. Geol. Surv.,' "The 

 Geol. of Isle of Wight; Explan. Sheet 10," by H. VV. Bristow, F.R.S., 1862. These publications contain 

 admirable and exhaustive descriptions of the Headon series. 



