ON THE PLIOCENE EEDS OF ST. ERTH. 201 



16. On the Pliocene Beds of St. Erth. By Percy F. Kendall, Esq., 

 Berkeley Fellow of the Owens College, and Eobert George 

 Bell, Esq., F.Gr.S. With an Appendix by Dr. G. J. Hinde, 

 F.G.S. (Bead February 24, 1886.) 



In presenting this paper for the consideration of the Geological 

 Society, we desire to state at the outset that it is intended only as a 

 report upon reaching a stage in the investigation of this interesting 

 deposit, and that any speculative remarks which we may venture to 

 oflfer are intended rather as indicating certain directions to which 

 inquiry may be turned with a prospect of useful result, than as well- 

 matured conclusions to which we are prepared rigidly to adhere. 



The materials at present available do not warrant us in taking a 

 less guarded attitude, the list of fossils which we bring forward, 

 though very large, being, Ave are convinced, capable of considerable 

 increase by a more extended examination of the beds than we have 

 hitherto been able to make. 



The attention of the Society was first directed to the St. Erth 

 deposits by a communication from the late Mr. S. Y. Wood, which 

 was read at an early meeting last session. That paper was con- 

 sidered by Mr. Wood to be of a tentative character, nothing very 

 accurate being known of the physical conditions of the deposit, nor 

 was there anything like a good knowledge of its contents, and it was 

 his hope that the attention of competent geologists might be drawn 

 to its occurrence, so that it might be worked out and surveyed in a 

 better manner than, in his invalid condition, he was able to perform. 

 Shortly afterwards Mr. Wood died, and by his desire the whole of 

 the material and correspondence was placed in the hands of one of 

 the authors of this communication, with the wish that the subject 

 might be still further worked out, especially with regard to the 

 Mollusca. 



In the course of the last summer St. Erth was visited by Mr. 

 Henry Keeping, who collected, in the interest of the Woodwardian 

 Museum, a large scries of Mollusca, with a few other remains, with 

 one or two exceptions all invertebrates, these exceptions being two 

 or three small vertebrae and two otoliths of fishes. Mr. Clement 

 Beid, of H.M. Geological Survey, also visited the section, making 

 observations and collecting a few shells (among which were three or 

 four species which had not been found previously) from the spoil- 

 heaps that had been left ; but the sides had subsequently fallen in 

 and he was unable to collect very extensively. Later on it was 

 examined by one of us, having the kind permission of the Yicar of 

 St. Erth, on whose glebe-land the deposit is exposed, and the result 

 of these several visits has been to materially increase the list of 

 species above that which was known at the time Mr. Wood's paper 

 was read. 



At present the number of known and described or named species 

 amounts to seventy-two, while there are about twenty morf; which 



