1858.] WOOD BED CRAG. 37 



tiaries as well as those from the more modern formations, such as 

 teeth oi Equus, horns of Cervus*, &c. 



In a Paper on the Eish-remains of the Red Crag, which I had the 

 honour to read before the Society, March 9, 1853, it was incidentally 

 mentioned that the land Mammalia of the Red Crag were supposed 

 to have been derived from some destroyed freshwater bed, probably 

 of the age of the Coralline Crag ; and, as the Mollusca of this for- 

 mation indicated a close Zoological relationship with the fauna of the 

 present seas, the Mammalian Remains were, on that account, con- 

 sidered as belonging to the upper portion of the Tertiary Series. It 

 is certainly possible that they might have been entombed in the 

 position in which they are now found ; but it is difiS.cult to conceive 

 that such was the case. Where would there be now found remains 

 of terrestrial Mammalia occurring in the like abundance, associated 

 Avith a littoral Mollusca'^. Mammalian remains are only found in 

 abundance in deposits formed by deltas of rivers, or by lakes, or in 

 morasses. They may occur in true marine deposits, as in the case 

 of the Hyracotherium in Heme Bay; but, in such case, the fossil 

 is a rarity. Take, for instance, the deposits now forming on any 

 of our own shores ; in none of these would there be entombed in 

 association with the httoral Mollusca any abundance of the remains 

 of terrestrial Mammalia now inhabiting those shores ; whereas the 

 constant erosion of a cliif formed by a deposit rich in vertebral 

 remains, as for instance the Chif at Hordle, would supply an 

 abundance of these remains ; the more indurated portions of which 

 would be swept into the banks now forming under the contiguous sea. 



The identifications of the fossil fish- teeth with those of the Lon- 

 don Clay species are inserted in the Table without entire confidence, 

 although the forms give fair presumption for the assignment. My 

 object is merely to insert as species those fossil teeth found in the 

 Red Crag which fairly correspond with those obtained from an 

 older formation. The determination of a species upon a smaU por- 

 tion of an animal, such for instance as the single tooth of a fish, where 

 the jaw contains a large number, and those sometimes of a varied 

 form, is perhaps scarcely a sufficient dependence for specific di- 

 stinction ; and the magnitude of one of these fishes has been assumed 

 from a character of the like kind. The proportions of Carcharodon 

 megalodon have been said (from the time of Shaw to the present 

 day) to rival those of our largest Cetacea, and this length is calcu- 

 lated from the dimensions of the tooth f. We have not at present 

 the means of knowing what might have been the proportions of the 

 joints constituting the vertebral column of these extinct species. 

 Should we be fortunate enough to obtain an element of this kind to 



* Mr. Acton has also obtained from the Red Crag of Sutton a tooth of the 

 Mastodon, in which the depressions between the papiUse of the grinding surface are 

 fiUed with the same material as that which adheres to the Cetacean teeth alluded 

 to. This would appear to favour the belief that the tooth of the Mastodon and 

 the teeth of the Cetacea obtained this agglomeration while they were in the Red 

 Crag. 



t British Assoc. Report, 1851, Sect. p. 54. 



