25G Lanhester — On the Suffolk Bone-hed and the Black Crag. 



adherent to many of the Cetacean remains, and of sandstone nodules 

 containing fossils of Diestien age is not noticed by Mr. Prestwich. 

 I have emphatically alluded to this sandy matrix in both the papers 

 on the Crags, which I have published. I have now to state that 

 during a recent visit to Suffolk I have obtained some thirty species 

 of Mollusca (perhaps more) from these sandstone blocks, and that 

 they are, as far as I have yet had leisure to examine them, of 

 Diestien age. I have Pectimcidi, an unusually large number of 

 Isocardice, some of the form J. lunulata, Voluta Lamherti of the 

 Diestien variety, differing notably from the Scaldisien, Eed, and 

 Coralline Crag form in its more elongate spire, Pyrida sp., and 

 many others. The Pyrida figured by Mr. Searles Wood from one 

 of these nodules differs from all the normal Eed and Coralline 

 Crag specimens so widely, that he gives it a distinct specific title. 

 Mr. Wood appears to have had but few specimens from these 

 nodules, and considered them of Coralline Crag age. The specimens 

 are in the condition of casts, the shell being in almost every case 

 dissolved away. They present a remarkable similarity in appearance 

 to the fossils from the ferruginous sandstones of Lenham in Kent, 

 which are reputed of Crag age. I had the pleasure of examining 

 Mr. Prestwich's collection of these fossils with Dr. von Koenen 

 some years since, and I think it very probable that their age, and 

 that of the Suffolk sandstone nodules, is identical. That the latter 

 are of Diestien age there can, I think, be little doubt ; for in addi- 

 tion to the Mollusca we have the important evidence of the existence 

 of the Cetacean remains in these rolled sandstones, and I have just 

 obtained the largest Carcharodon tooth I have yet seen embedded in 

 part in one of these sandstone nodules. 



With regard to the so-called Coprolite-bed, which is evidently a 

 great beach or littoral accumulation (like all other bone-beds) which 

 was formed, immediately before the Coralline Crag, from the detritus 

 of the London Clay, the Diestien or Black Crag, and the fragments 

 of subaerial and fresh-water accumulations (whence its Mastodon, 

 Bhinoceros, Tapir, Hyoena, Sus, and Cervus teeth), I wish to point out 

 the impropriety of the term "Coprolite-bed" (which is the local 

 name, and which, I believe, Mr. Prestwich adopts), for there is 

 probably not one coprolite in the whole of it. The phosjDhatic 

 nodules are masses of London Clay, often with characteristic fossils, 

 such as may now be seen rolled about on Suffolk beaches; and 

 these — by a process of substitution, which is no vague theory but a 

 recognised chemical fact — have received some 50 per cent, of 

 phosphate of lime from the vast quantities of fossil bones with 

 which they Avere associated on the sea-shore. This same history 

 applies to other phosphatic deposits, Cambridge, Potton, etc., as I 

 believe Mr. Walker has pointed out. This being the case I propose 

 to substitute the term ''Suffolk Bone-bed" for ''Coprolite-bed," 

 since it does not involve an erroneous theory, and the bed in question 

 is truly a "bone-bed," and comparable to other great "bone-beds," 

 such as that at the base of the Lias. 



I am able to offer an additional proof of the distinct character of 



