238 



CHALK OF FAXOE. 



[Ch. XVII. 



and a great part of the skeleton have been found. Such remains are 

 chiefly met with in the soft freestone, the principal member of the 



Fig. 247. 



Hetnipneustes radiatus, Ag. 



Spatangus radiatus, Lain. 



Chalk of Maestricht and white 



chalk. 



Mbsasaurus eamperi. Original more than 3 feet long. 



Maestncht beds. Among the fossils common to the Maestricht and white 

 chalk may be instanced the echinodenn (fig. 248). 



I saw proofs of the previous denudation of the white chalk exhibited 

 in the lower bed of the Maestricht formation Fig. 248. 



in Belgium, about 30 miles S. W. of Maestricht, 

 at the village of Jendrain, where the base of 

 the newer deposit consisted chiefly of a layer 

 of well-rolled, black, chalk-flint pebbles, in the 

 midst of which perfect specimens of Thecidea 

 radians and Belemnites mucronatus are im- 

 bedded. 



Chalk of Faxoe, — In the island of Seeland, 

 in Denmark, the newest member of the chalk 

 series, seen in the sea-cliffs at Stevensklint resting on white chalk with 

 flints, is a yellow limestone, a portion of which, at Faxoe, where it is 

 used as a building-stone, is composed of corals, even more conspicuously 

 than is usually observed in recent coral reefs. It has been quarried to 

 the depth of more than 40 feet, but its thickness is unknown. The im- 

 bedded shells are chiefly casts, many of them of univalve mollusca, which 

 are usually very rare in the white chalk of Europe. Thus, there are two 

 species of Cypraa, one of Oliva, two of Mitra, four of the genus 

 Cerithium, six of Fusus, two of Trochus, one Patella, one Emarginula, 

 etc. ; on the whole, more than thirty univalves, spiral or patelliforrn. At 

 the same time, some of the accompanying bivalve shells, echinoderms, and 

 zoophytes are specifically identical with fossils of the true Cretaceous 

 series. Among the cephalopoda of Faxoe may be mentioned Bacu- 

 lites Faujasii and Belemnites mucronatus, shells of the white chalk. 

 The Nautilus Banicus (see fig. 249) is characteristic of this formation ; 

 and it also occurs in France in the calcaire pisolitique of Laversin (dept. 

 of Oise). 



