356 MR. C. EEID ON THE PLEISTOCENE 



The third is a mass of littoral sand and shingle, resting irregularly 

 on the fossiliferous strata, and within a short distance overlapping 

 on to Bracklesham Eeds. All three deposits, notwithstanding their 

 different lithological character and fossils, belong, I believe, to one 

 series, and point to a gradual shoaling of the water and change from 

 an open sea to a sheltered estuary. 



The fossils in Eed 2 clearly show the influence of warmer seas 

 than those which now wash our shores ; for among the large 

 number of mollusca already recorded, several have a range exclusively 

 southern, and none are boreal. Prom Beds 3 and 4 we have a much 

 smaller list, and the species are not characteristically southern, 

 though certainly not Arctic. The associated plants include the oak, 

 blackberry, dog-rose, bird-cherry, bugle, lousewort, orache, horned 

 pond-weed, and two or three sedges. They point to a climate 

 sufficiently mild for forest- trees such as the oak, and therefore too 

 mild to allow of the formation of ice-foot. Bed 5 does not appear yet 

 to have yielded fossils at Selsey, but deposits, probably of the same 

 age, at Worthing and Brighton contain only common littoral species 

 such as inhabit our seas at the present day. 



The fossiliferous strata at West Wittering are seen on the fore- 

 shore, nearly half a mile. north-west Of the Beacon and due south of 

 the farm near the edge of the cliff. The relations of the deposits 

 are so difficult to make out, except after long-continued gales, that 

 it will be advisable to describe what was seen during last autumn 

 and winter on the half-mile of coast between West Wittering Beacon 

 and the extreme point of the peninsula. To the west I found the 

 stony loam, which overspreads the whole of the district, resting on 

 an irregular surface of Eocene clay. The clay rose to above the 

 level of high water, and at several spots erratic blocks were noticed 

 embedded in pits or channels in its upper surface. A quarter of a 

 mile to the south-west, shingle like that seen at Selsey comes in 

 between the stony loam and the Eocene clay. Then, within a few 

 yards, appear indications of an ancient eroded channel, and beneath 

 the shingle is seen a series of freshwater and estuarine strata having 

 a gravelly base full of re-deposited erratics. This channel cuts 

 down into the Eocene clay to the level of low-water, but is only 

 about ^ mile wide. Eastward, however, appearances are most 

 deceptive, for the more modern channel of an existing valley has cut 

 through the Pleistocene deposits and breaks into the side of the 

 older river-bed. One thus occasionally iinds re-deposited bones 

 of Elephant at the base of the later alluvium. The juxta- 

 position of the two deposits will lead to much confusion, unless the 

 greatest care is taken ; for the strata were formed under somewhat 

 similar conditions, though the fossils are different. In the newer 

 deposits bones of Bos are abundant, and the mollusca are all species 

 common in the immediate neighbourhood at the present day. In 

 the older series the bones belong to Rliinoceros and Elephas ; 

 Corhicula Jiumincdis is the most abundant shell, and Succinea 

 ohlonga and Hydrobia marginata are both common. 



The deposits in the older river-channel are so irregular and thin 



