354 Mr. Parkinson on the Strata^ tsfc. 



variations can hardly be considered as interrupting the continuity of 

 the stratification. 



Indeed when it is considered, that in France much more frequent 

 opportunities are afforded of examining the stratification immediately 

 above the chalk than in England, it will not be regarded as impro- 

 bable, that several of these beds or patches may exist here, the 

 discoveiy of which would render the accordance of the two series 

 of strata much more close. 



Even from the examinations which have been already made, the 

 identity of the French and English chalk is established. The British 

 strata above the chalk are also found to contain patches of plastic 

 clay, of most of the varieties mentioned in the French strata, as well as 

 patches of coarse limestone, with its accompanying sand and its pecu- 

 liar fossil shells, such as are found to exist in the corresponding 

 French strata. 



The other difference, the existence, in France, of beds of sand 

 and of sandstone above those of gravel, which are the highest strata 

 of this island, is very remarkable. May it not be attributable to the 

 abruption, from this island, of the superior strata or beds of this 

 formation, by that catastrophe, instances of the astonishing force 

 of which have been already noticed ? 



