150 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect.II. 



been washed out of the alluvial deposits of the neighbour- 

 ing cliffs by the action of the sea ; for the same kind of 

 drift and alluvial detritus is spread over the country 

 aloug the maritime districts of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and 

 Yorkshire. 



At Heme Bay, in the embouchure of the Thames, great 

 numbers of mammalian bones have been found ; Walton in 

 Essex is still more prolific ; and the late Mr. Woodward 

 informed me, that the elephants' teeth which had come 

 under his observation from the coast of Norfolk must have 

 belonged to more than 500 individuals. 



On the western coast of Sussex, and in the neighbour- 

 hood of Arundel, Patcham, and Brighton, teeth and bones 

 of elephants have at different times been exhumed. At 

 Brighton the teeth are found in a deposit of water-worn 

 materials, consisting of loam, chalk, and broken flints, 

 resting on a bed of shingle covering the chalk.* In the 

 conglomerate, of which I have already spoken (p. 114), as 

 well as in the superincumbent deposits, teeth of elephants, 

 with teeth and bones of a species of deer, horse, and whale, 

 occur, and are associated with marine shells ;f similar fossils 

 are found in deposits of a like character along the opposite 

 coast of France. 



These elephantine remains are, in the opinion of Dr. 

 Falconer, referable to three species : but the greater number 

 belong to the Mammoth, or fossil Elephant of Siberia. 



With these relics of extinct animals are found those 

 of many species which still inhabit England, as the Badger, 

 Otter, Polecat, Weasel ; and of others which were contem- 

 porary with the earliest British tribes, as the Irish Elk, 

 Bear, Beaver, Wolf.J 



* See Geology of the South-East of England, p. 32. 

 f Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 824, for an account of the discovery 

 of the fossil jaw of a Whale in Brighton Cliffs. 



X In the fenny district of Cambridgeshire, these and other mam- 



