192 UPPER EOCENE STRATA OF ENGLAND. [Ch. XV. 



with Goppert, lias investigated the botany of these formations. It will 

 be seen that in the leaf of this Daphnogene two veins branch off on 

 each side from the mid-rib, and run up without interruption to the 

 point. 



On the Lower Rhine, whether in the Mayence basin or in the Sieben- 

 gebirge, and in the neighborhood of Bonn and Cologne, there seem to 

 be Brown Coals of more than one age. Von Buch tells us that the 

 only fossil found in the Brown Coal near Cologne, one often met with 

 there in the excavation of a tunnel, is the peculiar fruit, so like a cocoa- 

 nut, called Nipadites or Burtonia Fanjasii (see fig. 220). Now this 

 fossil abounds in the Lower Eocene or Sheppy clay near London, also 

 in the Middle Eocene at Brussels ; and I found it still higher in the 

 same nummulitic series at Cassel, in French Flanders. This fact taken! 

 alone would rather lead us to refer the Cologne lignite to the Eocene 

 period. 



Some of the lignites of the Siebengebirge near Bonn associated with 

 volcanic rocks, and those of Hesse Cassel which accompany basaltic out- 

 pourings, are certainly of much later date. 



UPPER EOCENE STRATA OF ENGLAND. 



Hempstead beds. — Isle of Wight. — Until very lately it was supposed 

 by English geologists that the newest tertiary strata of the Isle of Wight 

 corresponded in age with the gypseous series of Montmartre near Paris ; 

 and this idea was confirmed by the fact that the same species of Palceo- 

 therium, Anoploiherium, and other extinct mammalia so characteristic of 

 the Parisian series, were also found at Binstead, near Ryde, in the north- 

 ern district of the island, forming part of the fluvio-marine series. "We 

 are indebted to Prof. E. Forbes for having discovered in the autumn of 

 1852 that there exist three formations, the true position of which had 

 been overlooked, all of them newer than the beds of Headon Hill, in 

 Alum Bay, which last were formerly believed to be the uppermost part of 

 the Isle of Wight tertiary series.* 



The three overlying formations to which I allude are as follows : — 

 1st, certain shales and sandstones called the St. Helen's beds (see 

 Table, p. 104, et seq.) rest immediately upon the Headon series ; 2dly, 

 the St. Helen's series is succeeded by the Bembridge beds before men- 

 tioned, the equivalent of the Montmartre gypsum ; and 3dly, above 

 the whole is found the Upper Eocene or Hempstead series. This newer 

 deposit, which is 170 feet thick, has been so called from Hempstead 

 Hill, near Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight.f The following is the suc- 

 cession of strata there discovered, the details of which are important 

 for reasons explained in the preliminary remarks of this chapter (p. 

 187) :— 



* E. Forbes, GeoL Quart. Journ. 1853. 



f This hill must not be confounded with Hampstead Hill, near London, where 

 the Lower Eocene or London Clay is capped by Middle Eocene sands. 



