248 Bagshot and Bracklesham Beds, 



nuts and the host of other plants help to prove it, and 

 the remains of river tortoises, crocodiles, snakes, mar- 

 supial, and several tapir-like mammals, all point in 

 the same direction. The estuarine conditions, begun 

 during the deposition of the Woolwich and Beading 

 beds, were still going on when the London Clay was 

 thrown down, with this difference, that by sinking of 

 the area, the estuary had become longer, wider, and 

 deeper, but still remained connected with a vast con- 

 tinent, through which the Eocene river flowed. 



The Bagshot and Bracklesham Sands and Clays, 

 fig. 47, succeed the London Clay. These are well shown 

 on Bagshot Heath, and on the coast of Hampshire. On 

 Bagshot Heath, they consist of light-brown and yellow 

 sands, with beds of clay, which, in a rude way, form the 

 middle part of the strata, thus dividing them into Lower 

 and Upper Bagshot sands, the whole, where thickest, 

 being about 300 feet thick. The sands are very sparingly 

 fossiliferous, but the clay, in places, contains a few 

 species. In the Hampshire basin, at Bracklesham and 

 other places, the lithological character of these strata is 

 very inconstant, but they consist of the following series 

 of strata, which are partly quite local : 



Upper Bagshot Sands, &c. 

 Barton Clay (quite local). 

 Bracklesham shells, sands, and clays. 



Lower Bagshot Sands and Clays, with occasional lenticular beds 

 of pipe-clay containing leaves, <fec. 



These strata have yielded about 200 species of fossils, 

 mostly distinct from those of the London Clay. Many 

 of the Gasteropoda have a tropical aspect, such as 

 Cyprcea Boiverbankii, Murex minax, and Conns 

 diver siformis. Gasteropoda, of these and other genera, 

 are exceedingly numerous, viz., Pleurotoma, Valuta, 



