292 LOWER EOCENE FORMATIONS, ENGLAND. [Oh. XVL 



species of the Island of Sheppey, lie observes, indicate a much more 

 tropical climate than the Eocene Flora of France. Now the latter 

 had deen derived principally from the Ujtpermost Eocene or gypseous 

 series, and resembles the vegetation of the 

 Fig. 249. borders of the Mediterranean rather than 



that of an equatorial region ; whereas the 

 older flora of Sheppey belongs to an ante- 

 cedent epoch, separated from the period of 

 the Paris gypsum by all the Barton and Bag- 

 shot series — in short, by the equivalents of 

 the great nummulitic series of continental 

 writers. 



Mr. Bowerbank, in a valuable publication 

 on the fossil fruits and seeds of the island 

 Mpadit68~diipti6U8, Bow. of Sheppey, near London, has described no 

 Fossil fruit of palm, from step- less than thirteen fruits of palms of the 

 recent type JVipa, now only found in the 

 Molucca and Philippine Islands and in Bengal (see fig. 249). In 

 the delta of the Ganges, Dr. Hooker observed the large nuts of 

 Nipa fruticans floating in such numbers in the various arms of 

 that great river, as to obstruct the paddle-wheels of steamboats. 

 These plants are allied to the cocoa-nut tribe on the one side, and on 

 the other to the Pandanus, or screw-pine. The fruits of other palms 

 besides those of the cocoa-nut tribe are also met with in the clay of 

 Sheppey ; also three species of Anona, or custard apple ; and cucur- 

 bitaceous fruits (of the gourd and melon family) are in considerable 

 abundance. Fruits of various species of Acacia are in profusion, and 

 these, although less decidedly tropical, imply a warm climate. 



The contiguity of land may be inferred not only from these vege- 

 table productions, but also from the teeth and bones of crocodiles 

 and turtles, since these creatures, as Dean Conybeare remarked, must 

 have resorted to some shore to lay their eggs. Of turtles there were 

 numerous species referred to extinct genera. These are, for the most 

 part, not equal in size to the largest living tropical turtles. A sea- 

 snake, which must have been thirteen feet long, of the genus Palcco- 

 phis before mentioned (p. 289), has also been described by Professor 

 Owen from Sheppey, of a different species from that of Bracklesham. 

 A true crocodile, also, Crocodilus toliapicus, and another saurian more 

 nearly allied to the gavial, accompany the above fossils; also the 

 relics of several birds and quadrupeds. One of these last belongs to 

 the new genus Hyracotherium of Owen, of the hog tribe, allied to 

 Chseropotamus ; another is a Lopkiodon ; a third a pachyderm called 

 Corypliodon eocwnus by Owen, larger than any existing tapir. All 

 these animals seem to have inhabited the banks of the great river 

 which floated down the Sheppey fruits. They imply the existence of 

 a mammiferous fauna antecedent to the period when nummulites flour- 

 ished in Europe and Asia, and therefore before the Alps, Pyrenees, 



