68 8. V. Wood—The Long Meadend Bed. 



To what extent the species marked " Edwards MS." maybe repre- 

 sented in French or Belgian beds I am unable to say ; but taking 

 the published species as the basis of remark, the statement I made 

 in the December Number of the Geol. Mag., that not many of the 

 Meadend species occurred in the Laekenian, but more in the Sables 

 Moyens, is borne out. All the Upper Eocene of England, however, 

 so far as the raolluscan remains in it afford an indication, appears to 

 have a greater connection with the beds regarded as the Upper 

 Eocene of France, than with those similarly regarded of Belgium ; 

 a fact for which no sufficient explanation has yet been suggested. 



Four of the published species, viz. Marginella shiplex, Psammohia 

 rudis, Corhula nitida, and Mya angustata (all Middle Headon shells), 

 do not seem to have occurred lower in the Tertiary series of England 

 than this bed, though Psammohia rudis occurs as low as the Calcaire 

 grassier in France. Whether any of the species marked " Edw. MS." 

 appear at a lower horizon than this bed I am unable to say. 



When (in the December Number) I spoke of this bed showing the 

 transition from the Upper Eocene to the Lower Oligocene, it was on 

 the assumption that Prof. Jxidd's suggested correlation (p. 167 of 

 vol. xxxvi. of the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.) was, so far as 

 regarded the parallelism of the Lower Headon with the Lower 

 Oligocene,^ sufficiently founded, whatever questions existed as to 

 other points of contention ; but as not one of the Meadend species 

 seems to have occurred in the Lower Oligocene of Belgium, and the 

 Meadend bed is but the fluvio-marine base of the Lower Headon, 

 the correspondence of any part of the Lower Headon to the Lower 

 Oligocene appears questionable.'^ 



As the paper of my father, in which the Meadend bed was first 

 made known, appeared in a periodical which stopped 37 years ago, 

 after only the first few numbers of it had been published (so that 

 his paper was not even concluded), and may be unknown to many 

 younger geologists, I here reproduce so much of it as specially re- 

 lates to the marine beds of Hordwell Clifi", viz. the Meadend bed and 

 the Middle Headon, and the positions they respectively occupy in 

 relation to the freshwater beds with which they are associated. 



" On. the Discovery of an Alligator and of several new Mammalia in the Hordwell 

 CM ; with Observations upon the Geological Phenomena of that Locality. By 

 Searles Wood, F.G.S. (page 3 of the London Geological Journal for September, 

 1846). ...... 



" So far back as 1822, Mr. "Webster visited this coast for the purpose of tracing 

 the connexion between the cliff at Hordwell and that on the opposite side of the 



1 As Prof. Judd in his vertical " New Forest" section, (loc. cit. p. 170) places the 

 "Sands" (numbered 1 in the section of Hordwell ClifE accompanying this paper) 

 which intervene between the base of the Lower Freshwater and the Barton Clay, 

 in his " Headon Group," and places all this group on the horizon of the Lower 

 Oligocene, it follows that this horizon begins in his view even some way below the 

 Meadend bed, although he does not show this bed in his section. 



2 One of the shells, Neritina concava, is given from the Klein Spawen bed ; but 

 as my father (see Eo. Moll. p. 346) found it at Muddiford, which is far below the 

 Meadend horizon, this would be no exception to the remark in the text. Bosquet, 

 however, regards the Belgian shell as different from Sowerby's concava. 



