5Q 



STRATA IN THE NE16HB0UUH00D OF LONDON. 



Land animals 

 appear to have 

 reiidcd on it. 



Situation of 

 their remains 



hand, that pieces of it occur, which are penetrated by irou 

 pyrites. 



This stratum is also rendered exceedingly interesting by 

 its surface appearing to have been the residence of land ani- 

 mals, not a single vestige of which seems to have been found 

 in any of the numerous subjacent strata of the British 

 series. Mr. Jacobs relates, that the remain* of an elephant 

 were found at Sliepey. The remains of the eiepliant, stag^ 

 and hippopotamus have also been dug up at Kew. At 

 Walton, in Essex, not only the remains of the elephant^ 

 stag, and hippopotamus have been discovered, but also 

 rCiUains of the rhinoceros, and of the Irish fossil elk.' Org. 

 Rem., vol. iii, p. 366. 



It has been generally supposed, that these remains were 

 contained within the stratum of blue clay ; but the circum- 

 stances, under which they are found, seem rather to war- 

 rant the conclusion, that they were deposited on the surface 

 of those low spots, where abrm)tions of the superior part of 

 this stratum had taken place. Thus the remains of the ele- 

 phant mentioned by Mr. Jacobs were not in the cliff, but in 

 a low situation at a distance from it; so also the remains of 

 land animals in Essex occur a little below the surface, in a 

 line with the marshes, which are a very few feet above high 

 water mark. By a communication of the late Mr. William 

 Trimmer, of Kew, it appeared, that he found, under the 

 sandy gravel, a bed of earth, higiily calcareous, from one 

 foot to nine feet in thickness ; bene:ith this a bed of gravel a 

 few feet thick, containing water ; and then the main stratum 

 of blue clay. At the bottom of the sandy gravel, he ob- 

 served, that the bones of the hippopotamus, deer, and elephant 

 were met with ; but liOt in thos^ parts of the field, to which 

 the calcareous bed did not extend. Mere also a considera- 

 ble number of smaH And apparently fr^sh-water shells, and, 

 at the bottom, snail-shells were found. Does it not seem. 

 Formation and that the first appearance, or creation, of lund-animals was^a 

 land of this stratum ; 'and that they were over- 

 whelmed in these spots, by that sea, which deposited the 

 present superincumbent strata of gravel ? 



Shells foiind 

 there. 



desiruciion of ^^ jj.., 



these aniiiiais. 



[To be concluded in out next.) 



K. 



