FITTON S SECTION AT ATHERFIELD. 



303 



Groups V. VI. and VIII. Scaphites and Crioceras. 



The only account of these remarkable genera from the lower green- 

 sand which has been published being that of Mr. Sowerby (Geol. 

 Trans. 2nd Ser. vol. v. pi. 34), I requested that gentleman to examine 

 the specimens in my collection, and he has favoured me with some 

 remarks upon them * ; to which at my request he has added a sketch 

 (upon a scale of yV^^ ^^ ^^^ natural size), that my readers may have 

 before them all the species hitherto found near Atherfield. 



Fig. 2. 

 Fig. 1. 



Figs. 1 and 2, Crioceratites Bowerhankii, Sow., of two varieties ; the second differing from that 

 previously published in the greater divergence of its outer whorls. 



Fig. 3 is Scaphites Hillsil (Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser. iv. pi. 15, fig. 1 and 2). 



Fig. 4, Scaphites gigas (Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser. v.), Ancyloceras gigas, D'Orb. pi. 34, f. 2. 



The cliif of sand occupied by these fossils extends upon the shore 

 from the rise of the top of No. 13 to a point about 1300 feet east of 



* Mr. Sowerby states, that " the difficulty of arranging these genera arises from 

 the great variation of their characters ; the space between the whorls differing 

 much in those which have been called Crioceras — as in fig. 1 and fig. 2 — both of 

 which may be referred to Cr. Bowerbankii. But since none of the species have 

 a second cm-vature of the shell, after it becomes straight, it appears to me that 

 this genus ought not to be disturbed. An exception to this character occurs 

 in Scaphites Hillsii (fig. 3), which so nearly resembles fig. 1 that Prof. Forbes 

 considers them as of the same species ; the only difference being that the ribbed 

 portion of the last whorl (fig. 2 and 3) is, in ^S". Hillsii, produced nearly in a straight 

 line and afterwards incurved. Still it appears to me to be better to retain this 

 species, than by uniting it with C. Bowerbankii, to give up one or perhaps both 

 of the links in the chain between Ammonites and Scaphites. Until we know the 



Y 2 



