end Fossil Remains near London, 34S 



feet specimens of Calyptraa trochiformh^ Lam. Trochus apertiis, 

 Brander. Area glyccmeres^ Arcce Natica, and many minute shells in 

 good preservation. All these shells appear to have entirely lost their 

 animal matter, and not having become imbued with any connecting 

 impregnation, they are extremely brittle. On examination with a lens 

 it also appears that in most of the specimens nothing of their origi- 

 nal surface remains, it having been every where indented with im- 

 pressions of the surrounding minute sand, made whilst the shells were 

 in a softened state. This circumstance is particularly evinced in the 

 Cyclades, in which a particular character in the hinge was thus con- 

 cealed ; in a mass of these shells from the Isle of Wight, it appears 

 that the lateral teeth are crenulated, somewhat similar to those of the 

 Mactra sol'ida in the gravel stratum ; but in the Cyclades of Plum- 

 stead, this was not discoverable from the injuries which their surface 

 had sustained from the sand. 



The fossils of this stratum evidently agree with those found by 

 Lamarck and M. De France, above the chalk at Grignon, Courtagnon, 

 &c. and they have been just shewn, incidentally, to exist in the Isle 

 of "Wight. In an eastern and southern direction from London this 

 stratum with its fossils is frequently discovered. 



On the heath near Gray ford, about four miles eastward of Charlton, 

 long vaulted oysters are found similar to those already mentioned. 

 About two miles further in the parish of Stone, is Cockle-shell-bank, 

 so called, as Mr. Thorpe, the author of Custumale Roffense^ says, 

 p. 254 of that work, " from the great number of small shells there 

 *' observable." These are the Cyclades already spoken of, and which 

 Mr. John Latham, author oi The general Sy?iopsis of Birds ^ thought 

 bore some resemblance to TcUina Cornea, Linn. Histor. Conchyl. of 

 Lister, tab. 159. fig. 14. Mr. Latham here also met with a species of 

 Cerithium, and another of Turritclla, Fragments of these shells are 



