274 Fish and Mammalia. 



is frequently a stratum full of phosphatic remains, 

 and known as the Coprolite bed. In it are found 

 many sharks' teeth, vertebrae of fish, and many ear- 

 bones and occasional vertebrae and other bones of 

 whales. The sharks' teeth have often been derived 

 from the London Clay, and the whales' bones are al- 

 ways very much water-worn, and have altogether a 

 much more ancient appearance than that of the 

 ordinary fossils of the Crag. 



Among them are the bones and teeth of land mam- 

 malia of extinct species, Castor veterior (beaver), Cer- 

 vus dicranoceros (deer), Equus plicidens (horse) and 

 Hipparion, Hyaena antiqua and Felis pardoides. Mas- 

 todon Arvernensis, M. tapiroides and Elephas Merid- 

 ionalis, Rhinoceros Schleiermacheri and Sus anti- 

 quus. Similar phosphatic remains, though fewer in 

 number, have been found with bones of whales at the 

 base of the Coralline Crag at Sutton. In both cases, 

 many of the bones, &c., are worn and mineralised, and 

 the question is, whether or not the greater part of 

 these terrestrial mammalia belonged to the Crag 

 epoch ? 



So plentiful are these, that to separate them from 

 the Crag, for the manufacture of manure, forms a pro- 

 fitable branch of commerce. 



There are many reasons for believing that during 

 the later part of the Eocene and all through the Miocene 

 epoch, the area now called Britain was joined to the 

 Continent. The physical geography of the country 

 was different, with, however, a general identity in so far 

 that, as already shown, the Palaeozoic mountainous re- 

 gions now were mountainous then, while between them 

 lay broad plains of secondary formations. In late 

 Miocene times mammalian races must have inhabited 



