172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Herries remarked on the resemblance between this paper 

 and the last on the same subject. The Author tried to make his 

 section pass muster by an ingenious use of double numbers for the 

 various beds. This numbering had its origin in the "Wellington- 

 College well-section, which Dr. Irving took as a type. His bed 9 

 and 10, howcA^er, which was chiefly in dispute, had unfortunately, 

 by his own admission, departed widely from its original type, which 

 was a homogeneous clay. It appeared to admit of the most remark- 

 able variations, but yet was always recognizable. The Author called 

 it a loam, an ambiguous term, on the meaning of which the correct- 

 ness of the section to a great extent depended. This so-called loam, 

 according to the paper, contained 50 per cent, of sand in one case, 

 and in another as much as 75 ; the latter the speaker would prefer 

 to call a clayey sand, and the former was at least as much a sand as 

 a clay. This could not be referred to the homogeneous clay which 

 formed the basal bed of the Middle Bagshot in the well-section, but 

 was in all cases a phase of the clayey sands of the Lower Bagshot. 



The President remarked that, though he had little personal 

 knowledge of the ground described in the paper, he had confidence 

 in the ability of the members of the Geological Survey by whom it 

 had been mapped. These gentlemen were not able to be present at 

 the meeting, but they probably felt with him that life is short and 

 the Bagshot beds are long, and that they were hardly likely to 

 convince Dr. Irving of the correctness of their mapping by any 

 additional argument they could use. 



2. " l^otes on some Post-Tertiary Marine Deposits on the South 

 Coast of England." By Alfred Bell, Esq. (Communicated by E. 

 Etheridge, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S.) 



[Abstract.] 



The Author's object in this paper is to trace the successive stages 

 in the development of the present coast of the north side of the 

 English Channel, and to ascertain the sources of the diversified 

 faunas. 



The first traces of marine action on the South Coast in post- 

 Tertiary times are found on the foreshore in Bracklesham Bay. The 

 Author's reading of the section is somewhat different from that of 

 the late Mr. Godwin-Austen ; and he divides the marine series into 



(1) an estuarine clay with moUusca common to estuarine flats ; 



(2) a compact hard mud ; and (3) a bed of fine sandy silt with many 

 organisms. These beds indicate a change from estuarine to deep- 

 water conditions. A full list of the Selsey fossils is given, including, 

 amongst other animals, upwards of 200 mollusca. Of 35 species of 

 mollusca not now living in Britain, the majority exist in Lusitanian, 

 Mediterranean, or African waters ; furthermore, nearly 45 per cent, 

 of the mollusca are common to the older Crags of the Eastern 



