Geology of the Neighbourhood of Weymouth, 8fc. 45 



beneath the sea, and is preserved at Abbotsbury by the Countess of Ilchester. 

 Near Bridport also, at the villages of Burton Bradstock and Loders, the 

 gravel has afforded the remains of elephants and other terrestrial quadrupeds. 

 In the gravel that crowns the cliffs of lias, near the church of Lyme Regis, 

 many teeth of rhinoceros have been found, and portions of the tusks of 

 elephants ; and lastly, the cliff at the south termination of the valley of Char- 

 mouth, where, as at Lyme, the lias is covered with a cap of diluvium, has 

 afforded several nearly perfect tusks of elephants which tumble from the 

 summit and get mixed with the debris of lias, when masses of the cliff are 

 undermined, and fall down on the sea shore. A tusk nine feet eight inches 

 long, from the gravel of this cliff, was some years ago in the collection of 

 Mr. De la Beche, and is now in the Museum of the Geological Society*. 

 Two molar teeth of elephant, one weighing twelve the other thirteen pounds, 

 were found in this same cliff, in December 1832. 



Conclusion. « 



We shall conclude with pointing out the following general results that 

 appear deducible from the facts we have been considering. We conceive 

 that we have before us sufficient evidence of the following succession of 

 changes in the state of that small portion of England which occupies the coast 

 of Dorsetshire. They are analogous to those deduced by Mr. Mantell from 

 the phenomena he has described in the weald of Sussex. 



1st, We have a succession of marine deposits, continuous from the lias up- 

 wards through the oolites, and terminating in the deposition of the Portland 

 stone ; during the period of all these formations our district must have been 

 the bottom of an ancient sea : the presence of the remains of trees in the 

 oolite and lias shows that land existed probably at no great distance from this 

 sea; it is also probable that the waters were not very deep, in which Plesiosauri 

 vrere so abundant as they must have been, to supply such numerous remains 

 as we find imbedded in the lias at Lyme. 



2ndly, The bottom of this sea appears for a certain time to have become 

 dry land, and whilst in this state, to have been covered with a forest of large 

 coniferous trees, and of Cycadeoideous plants that indicate a warm climate. 

 We have a measure of the duration of this forest, in the thickness of decayed 

 vegetable matter and soil, which has accumulated more than a foot of black 

 earth around the roots of these trees. The regular and uniform preservation 

 of this thin bed of black earth over a distance of so many miles, shows that 



» s, 



ee Geological Transactions, Second Series, vol. i. p. 421 — i22. 



