246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 21, 



borougli and the Reculvers ; in some of those cases where the shell has 

 been removed, the animal matter has resisted decomposition and 

 forms an earthy brown semi-elastic film covering the internal cast. In 

 burning it gives off ammonia in abundance. Judging from the same 

 test, animal matter is often traceable in the blackish green mud-like 

 sediment in which the green-coated flints are imbedded. 



On the side of the road on Woodnesborough Hill, about one fur- 

 long N.N.E. of the church, I found a few years ago fragments of 

 numerous shells in the sands 30 to 40 feet above the chalk. In the 

 lanes 1 and 1^ mile W. of Ash, leading down the south slope of the 

 hill, along which the road from Sandwich to Canterbury passes, I have 

 found casts of the Cyprina Morrisii ; and again at Wingham, nearer 

 to Canterbury, there is a considerable thickness of the Thanet Sands 

 in a semi-indurated state and containing numerous impressions of 

 shells. The road just out of the village, and leading to Preston 

 Street, cuts through these beds, whilst on the top of the hill the 

 sands of the central division of the Lower Tertiaries are largely 

 quarried. In a field just below the cottages 1^ mile 13° W. of N. 

 from "Wingham Church is a bank of the Thanet Sands full of casts 

 of shells ; and again on the sides of the lane leading up E. from the 

 small valley halfway between Upper Hoath and Beaksbourne Street, 

 and just two miles 22° S. of E. from Canterbury Cathedral, is an 

 excellent section of the Thanet Sands in their semi-indurated condi- 

 tion and abounding in fossils, but all in a state of casts both internal 

 and external. On the high-road about 11 mile W. from Canterbury 

 I have also found traces of casts of shells. 



In all these places, the characteristic and by far the most abundant 

 shell is the Cyprina Morrisii. The Cucullcea crassatina, one or two 

 species of Artemis or Cytherea (including the C. orbicularis of Ed- 

 wards), the Thracia ohlata, Pholadomya cuneatay Corhula longiros- 

 tris, a small Leda, and Ampullaria suhdepressa, are far from uncom- 

 mon. Other species are comparatively scarce. 



A large number of the bivalve shells have been drilled by Zoopha- 

 gous molluscs, but the proportion of shells belonging to this latter 

 class preserved in these strata is very small. 



Westward of this district the organic remains of the Thanet Sands 

 become exceedingly rare. Some years since Mr. Crowe found the 

 CucullcEa crassatina, and, I believe, a few other shells, but all in 

 the state of siliceous casts, in the lower part of the Thanet Sands be- 

 tween Faversham and Boughton*, but the section no longer exists. 

 I have carefully examined numerous sections between Faversham, 

 Sittingbourne, Chatham, Upnor, and in many parts of the north-west 

 of Kent, without being able to find more than slight indications of 

 fossils, and even these indistinct traces are uncommon f. I have met 



* It is said to have been in a field near the brook in Nash Park. If so, it could 

 not have been many feet above the chalk. 



t Since wanting the above, I have found in a bank bordering the lane, one furlong 

 due S. from Oakwell Farm, which is, by the Ordnance Map, exactly 2^ miles due 

 W. from Faversham Church, a seam full of shells in the state of semi-opaque sili- 

 ceous casts. The Cyprina, Cuculleea, and a Cytherea are common. The silicification 



