VII. CORALS FROM THE TERTIARY’ FORMATIONS. 
I. Corals from Brockenhurst and Roydon. 
Tne fossiliferous bed at Brockenhurst in Hampshire was discovered during the 
formation of a railway; it was diligently examined, and it has produced some most interest- 
ing mollusca and corals. 
The molluscan fauna has much in common with those of the beds im Germany about 
Magdeburg, Bernburg, Aschersleben, Egeln, Helmstadt, and Latdorf,’? and with those of 
the strata at Tongres, near Liége. Moreover, some of its most characteristic species are found 
in the Middle Headon beds at Colwell Bay and at Whitecliff Bay, in the Isle of Wight.’ 
The Brockenhurst bed lies immediately upon a freshwater formation,* the fossils of 
which are specifically identical with those of the freshwater beds of the Lower Headon; 
and it is covered by unfossiliferous sands. 
The fossils from Roydon probably came from a well. 
Corals are not found in the Middle Headon beds, but they abound at Brockenhurst; 
and it may therefore be admitted that the strata at the latter locality are the purely marine 
and oceanic representatives of the former.’ 
‘The specimens of fossil corals from Brockenhurst are tolerably perfect ; they are gene- 
rally covered with a red argillaceous sand; and they often contain selenite and sulphide 
1 It is necessary in using the terms “Tertiary,” “ Eocene,” &c., to remember that there has been 
a constant and gradual development of ‘‘species’’ from the first appearance of life on the globe to the 
present day, and that the terms are only useful as parts of a scientific nomenclature. There is only an 
arbitrary distinction to be made between any of the successive formations and systems. Hence I have felt 
very disinclined to term the Brockenhurst beds Lower Oligocene, although they are clearly the equivalents 
of the German beds so called by Beyrich, and of the Tongrien Inferieur of Dumont. 
2 Beyrich, ‘ Ueber den Zusammenhang der Norddeutschen Tertiirbildungen, zur Erlauterung einer 
geologische Uebersichtskarte; Abhandl. der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1855. 
Reemer, in Dunker’s ‘ Paleeontographica,’ 1862, 1864; Reuss, “ Zur Fauna des Deutschen Oberoligo- 
cans,”’ ‘K. Akad. der Wiss.,’ Nov. 1864. 
5 Von Koenen, ‘‘ Oligocene Deposits,’ ‘ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,’ Dec., 2nd 1863. (Mr. F. Edwards’ 
researches formed the basis of this paper.) F. Finch, Dr. Sc., has assured me of the truth of this statement 
from the results of his personal observation. 
4 Von Koenen, op. cit. 
5 «Mem. Geol. Survey Great Britain,’ on the “Tertiary Fluvio-marine Formation of the Isle of Wight,” 
by Edward Forbes, edited by R. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., and others, 1856. ‘Mem. Geol. Surv.,’ “The 
Geol. of Isle of Wight; Explan. Sheet 10,” by H. W. Bristow, F.R.S., 1862. These publications contain 
admirable and exhaustive descriptions of the Headon series. 
