ayid Fossil Remains near London,, 331 



Immediately beyond the Nase the shore suddenly recedes and 

 forms a kind of estuary, terminated towards the east by the pro- 

 jecting cliff of Harwich, which is capped in a similar manner with 

 beds of these shells. The height of this cliff is from forty to fifty 

 feet, about twenty-two feet of the lower part of which is the upper 

 part of the blue clay stratum ; " above which," as Mr. Dale ob- 

 serves, " to within two feet of the -surface, are divers strata of sand 

 " and gravel mixed v/ith fragments of shells, and small pebbles; and 

 *' it is in some of these last mentioned strata that the fossil shells are 

 *' imbedded. These fossils lie promiscuously together, bivalve and 

 *' turbinate, neither do the strata in. which they lie observe any order, 

 *' being sometimes higher and sometimes lower in the cliff j v/ith 

 " strata of sand, gravel, and fragments of shells between. Nor do 

 " the shells always lie separate or distinct in the strata, but are 

 " sometimes found in lumps or masses, something friable, cemented 

 " together with sand and fragments, of a ferruginous or rusty colour, 

 *' of which all these strata are."* 



The coast of Essex is here separated from that of Suffolk by the 

 river Stour, by which the continuity of this stratum is necessarily 

 interrupted. It however occurs again on the opposite side of the 

 river, and through Suffolk and great part of Nprfolk the same bed of 

 shells is found on digging ; thus appearing to extend over a tract- 

 of at least forty miles in length. 



* These shells are in general found in the same confused mixture^ 

 as is described by Mr. Dale j but they are also sometimes so disposed, 

 that patches of particular genera and species appear to be now oc- 

 cupying the very spots where they had lived. This seems particu- 



* Appendix by Samuol Dale to the History and Antiquities of Harwich and Dover, 

 court by Silas Taylor, 1732. 



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