220 PROCEEDINGS OF TKE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



one specimen. Of the other fossils I obtained several specimens, — 

 the bivalve shells being common, but extremely difficult to preserve 

 entire*. The Purpura and Balanus I found only on the blocks 

 of chalk ; and I should be disposed to infer, from the condition of the 

 Bivalve Molluscs, Foraminifera, and Echinodermata, that they Hved 

 on the spot — probably a sandy-bottomed, sheltered bay of some 

 moderate depth of water, — and that the chalk-boulders with their 

 attached fossils were transported from some adjacent hne of chalk- 

 escarped coast, and quietly dropped at a short distance from the 

 shore. As almost all the above species have a considerable range 

 in time, it will require a larger collection of organic remains to 

 determine the exact age of this deposit : that it is comparatively 

 very recent, probably Post-phocene, there can, however, be little 

 doubt ; nor is there, I think, much doubt of its synchronism with the 

 old Brighton beach, or rather that these sand-beds are the seaward 

 prolongation of the old beach. The cliffs, if cliffs there were, are 

 swamped and hidden by the overlying drift, as the old cliff is at 

 Kemp Town f. 



Westward from Goodwood the sands may be traced a short 

 distance towards Lavant; but, beyond that place, at East Ashling, 

 Funtingdon, and Eacton, I could not obtain any satisfactory proof of 

 their presence. Taking, however, the road from Aldsworth west- 

 ward over Bourne Common, there is, on the top of the low hill 

 overlooking the reservoir, a gravel-pit opened in a bed of flint- 

 shingle, closely resembling, though not so large as, that of the old 

 beach at Avisford Dell ; but there is no drift above it, and no sands 

 were exposed under it. Thence to Leigh and Havant, three miles 

 further westward, I met with no other sufficient sections. Still 

 further westward and southward, beds, apparently of this age, have 

 been described by Mr. Godwin-Austen in a series of excellent papers 

 published in the Journal of this Society. I would more par- 

 ticularly refer to the raised shingle which he mentions near Ports- 

 mouth, to the great shingle-cliff at Bembridge in the Isle of Wight, 



* Mr. Hills, of the Chichester Museum, showed me some perfect specimens of 

 the Mytilus edulis, Cardium edule, and Tellina Balthica, which he had found 

 in a bed of sand by the side of the railway at Oving, three miles east of 

 Chichester. He has also found in the lower part of the gravel at Port Field, 

 near Chichester, some irregular thin seams of chalky marl containing land and 

 freshwater shells of the following species : — 



Helix hispida. Pupa marginata. 



nemoraHs. Planorbis spirorbis. 



Succinea putris. Bulimus obscurus. 



t Remains of shells have been found in the raised beach at Brighton, but 

 they are very scarce. Dr. Mantell also obtained from it a bone of the Whale 

 {Bal(sna onysticetus). Mr. Dixon mentions Littorina rudis and L. neritoides, 

 Purjpura lapillus, and Mytilus edulis from the Post-pHocene sand and shingle 

 of Shoreham and Broadwater. He also gives a long list of shells {op. cit. 

 p. 17) occurring in an old sea-bed at Bracklesham Baj and Selsea, which he 

 seems to consider more recent than the Brighton bed ; but he does not assign his 

 reasons for that opinion. Sir R. Murchison likewise found shells beneath the 

 " angular flint-drift" at Hove (op. cit.). 



