74 A. Bell — Succession of the Later Teriiaries in Gt. Britain. 



is elevation ; hence there is little to wonder at that marine life in this 

 stage should be so much less active in appearance than in the preced- 

 ing period ; and nearly all deposits, whatever height they may occupy, 

 belonging to this stage, have been deposited in shallow waters. 

 Present elevation goes for nothing : for example, the living zone of 

 Saxicava Norvegica is from 30 to 90 fathoms, and of Thracia convexa 

 4 to 70 fathoms, yet they occur between tide marks on the same 

 level on exactly opposite sides of Scotland, namely, at Bute and 

 the Frith of Forth. 



A few of the Scotch shell clays belong to this stage, but the non- 

 Arctic shell-beds are chiefly of post " minor glacial " or Neolithic 

 age, certainly those in which Pecten Islandicus, Tellina calcarea, and 

 Astarfe borealis, species still living within easy reach of our coasts 

 (as in Faroe and Norway), are conspicuously absent. 



The Marine Gravels of March and Hunstanton below the Fen Peats, 

 and those of Kelsey Hill in the north, and Chislet in the south, belong 

 to this era, the association of Corbicula and fluviatile species with 

 marine forms in the two latter being very noticeable, indicating 

 beyond any doubt that marine conditions again prevailed in the 

 North Sea. The March gravels may be of a slightly earlier age, 

 equivalent to the Barnwell freshwater gravels ; they cannot be far 

 away. 



This epoch is the so-called palasolithic or rough stone implement 

 age of Man, and the prevalence of rough-shapen tools from Peter- 

 borough southwards, and their absence together with that of the 

 accompanying Mammalia in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, affords a 

 fair inference that these places were under water at the time. As a 

 general rule, the more advanced manufactured weapons are in the 

 newer deposits ; but, just as Dr. Schliemann found at Troy a Bronze 

 people, succeeded by a Neolithic one, so inferior tools occasionally 

 are supra the better-class weapons. Stratigraphically they must be 

 received with caution. 



In order of time the fauna of the Bedford Ouse and Thet valleys, 

 the Somerset caves, the Upper Thames gravels, and the Kirkdale 

 and Settle * caves, in which Reindeer are few or absent, seem to 

 precede the Fisherton gravels with Marmot, and the Windsor, Rugby, 

 Windy Knoll, and Grower Caves in which they are more plentiful, 

 the Cave earth of Kent's Hole and Cresswell Crags with bone 

 harpoons evidently being the most advanced of all. Professor 

 Prestwich's suggestion that the Hippopotamus was fitted for a more 

 northern climate than it now inhabits seems to be irrefutable, since 

 it is found associated with remains of species widely separated from 

 it now in space and climate. Such separations among old associates 

 are common enough among the Mollusca. Taking Butley again for 

 an instance, of shells which in life were associated, and are now 

 found side by side fossil, Gastrana laminosa is Natalese, Tellina 

 obliqua Japanese, Fusus altum North Cape, Admete viridula Green- 

 land ic. 



1 The supposition that the lower cave earth here is Preglacial will not bear 

 investigation. 



