Lankester — On the Suffolk Bone-hed and the Black Crag, 257 



the Suffolk Bonc-bcd, in its occurrcnco in a pit at Trimlcy on the 

 Orwell, without any superimposed Crag, Red or Coralline. The 

 section in this pit gave soil 1^ ft., clay with flints 4J ft., red sand 

 (from which I obtained a tooth of Elephas meridionalis) 12 feet. 

 Bone-bed IJ feet, consisting of phosphatic-clay nodules, sandstone 

 nodules and slabs, bones, teeth, etc., with greyish white sand. 



The study of chemical geology does not receive in this country 

 the attention which it merits. The discussions in this Magazine on 

 the chemistry of the Prima} val earth, show who are the men to deal 

 with such questions, but nothing appears to be done as to the pro- 

 cesses of fossilization, a most important subject, which, if reduced to 

 principles, would greatly aid students of Cainozoic geology.^ The 

 mineral conditions of the vertebrate remains of the Suffolk Bone -bed 

 is a case in point. The enamel crowns only (with rare exceptions) 

 of the teeth of terrestrial mammalia are found in it. Some persons 

 have been astonished at the very great rarity of bones corresponding 

 to the teeth of the terrestrial mammals, whilst bones in the same 

 mineral condition as the cetacean teeth and tusks of Trichecodon are 

 by no means so rare. I believe the explanation of this is to be 

 found in the fact that the bones of land animals came on to the 

 Bone-bed beach either in a fresh condition or in a very different 

 state of preservation from the Diestien Cetaceans. The sea very 

 rapidly destroys fresh bones by a chemical as well as mechanical 

 action : this fact was elicited last year at Dundee, in the discussion 

 on Mr. Gwyn Jeffrey's dredging report, who recorded the occurrence 

 of a ferret's bone dredged from a considerable depth : this was the 

 only bone of a land animal which Mr. Jeffreys had ever dredged, 

 great as his experience has been. Thus it is that the cement and 

 dentine of the teeth as well as the bones of the terrestrial mammals 

 of the Crag Bone-bed have been destroyed, whilst the durable 

 stony enamel crowns remain intact. It is very probable that 

 many of the remains of terrestrial mammals in the Crag Bone-bed 

 were embedded in fresh-water deposits contemporaneous with 

 Diestien beds, which I have alluded to in other papers, as deposits 

 of late Miocene or early Pliocene age. A most remarkable thing is 

 the supposed persistence of Mastodon Arvernev.sis from this early 

 period to the epoch of the Forest-bed of Norfolk ; is it not a 

 derived fossil there? The present coast-line of Essex, Suffolk, 

 and Norfolk indicates and limits an area of alternate depres- 

 sion and elevation which commenced as early as the London 

 Clay period (for here we find splendid teeth of Corypliodon, etc.), 

 and is even now continuing. On the clay lands of the early 

 Eocene flourished the small mammalia, whose remains are embedded 

 in the Kyson sands, much later the Mastodon, Tapir, Bhinoceros, 

 Hycena antiqua, and others appeared on the scene.^ These were 



1 No Elephant occurs with the Mastodon in the Suffolk Bone-bed. The late Dr. 

 Falconer was, I believe, misled on this point, by specimens from the Eed Sands above 

 the Red Crag. 



2 Dr. Hugo Miiller, whose name is well known among chemists, and who has paid 

 especial attention to this subject, has kindly promised to communicate an article to the 

 Geological Magazine upon this very question, at a future day. — Edit. 



