338 Mr. VA'RKl^NSO^i^ on the Strata^ 



so abundant at Shepey ; whilst the Murex pyrus, Murex longavtis, 

 Strombus amplus^ &c. of the Hampshire cUfF had never, perhaps, 

 been enumerated among the Shepey fossils. 



The identity of the stratum at Shepey and in Hampshire has, 

 within a few years, been decided by digging into this same stratum 

 at Kew, where several of the fossils, which had hitherto been sup- 

 posed peculiar to Shepey, were found in the same pit with those 

 which had been considered as peculiar to Hampshire. 



In the present year, on cutting through a mound of this stratum 

 which forms Highgate-hill, this identity has been still farther mani- 

 fested by the discovery of great numbers of those fossils mingled 

 together which had been generally distinguished into Hampshire 

 and Shepey fossils; as crabs, nautili, &cc. like those of Shepey, together 

 with several shells which had been generally regarded as peculiar to 

 Hampshire, and in particular that uncommon alated shell, Strombus 

 amplus, Solander. (Rostellaria macroptera, Lamarck.) 



In examining this stratum, the curious fact that certain organic 

 remains are peculiar to particular depositions, is first observed. Very 

 few indeed of the fossil shells of the gravel strata are to be found in 

 the bed of blue clay. In the gravel strata, by far the greater number 

 of the shells bear a close agreement with those which now exist in 

 not very distant seas ; but in this clay stratum, " very few of the 

 *' shells are known to be natives of our own, or indeed any of the 

 " European shores, but the far greater part of them, upon a compa- 

 " rison with the recent, are wholly unknown to us."* 



But although this clay stratum contains fossils of a much older 

 date than those of the gravel stratum, it possesses other marks which 

 agree with its position in shewing that it is of comparatively modern 



* Fossilia Ilantonicnsiaj p. 5. 



