294 



STRATA OF KYSON IN SUFFOLK. [Ch. XYI. 



256. Fig. 257. Pig. 258. 



Zeda amygdaloide 

 Highgate. 



Cryptodon angulatum. 

 London clay. Hornsea. 



Astropecten crispatus. 

 E. Forbes. Sheppey. 



These fossils are accompanied by a sword-fish. (Tetrapterus priscus, 

 Agassiz), about eight feet long, and a saw-fish (Pristis hisulcatus, Ag.), 

 about ten feet in length ; genera now foreign to the British seas. On 

 the whole, no less than fifty species of fish have been described by M. 

 Agassiz from these beds in Sheppey, and they indicate, in his opinion, 

 a warm climate. 



Strata of Kyson in Suffolk. — At Kyson, a few miles east of 

 Woodbridge, a bed of Eocene clay, twelve feet thick, underlies the 

 red crag. Beneath it is a deposit of yellow and white sand, of consider- 

 able interest, in consequence of many peculiar fossils contained in it. 

 Its geological position is probably the lowest part of the London clay 

 proper. In this sand have been found remains of an opossum (Didel- 

 phys) (see fig. 259), and an insectivorous bat (fig. 260), together with 

 many teeth of fishes of the shark family. Mr. Colchester, in 1840, ob- 

 tained other mammalian relics from Kyson, among which Professor 

 Owen has recognized several teeth of the genus Hyracotherium (fig. 

 261), and the vertebrae of a large serpent, probably a Palwophis. 



Fig. 259. 



Fig. 260. 



Fig. 261. 



Molar tooth and part of jaw 

 of opossum. 

 From Kyson.* 



Molars of insectivorous bats, 



twice nat. size. 



From Kyson, Suffolk. 



Molar of 

 Hyracotherium^ 



As the remains both of the Hyracotherium and Palwophis were after- 

 wards met with in the London clay, as before remarked, these fossils 

 confirm the opinion previously entertained, that the Kyson sand be- 

 longs to the Lower Eocene period. A fossil lower jaw with teeth from 

 the same bed was at first referred by Professor Owen, in 1840, to a 

 monkey called Macacus eocamus, and afterwards Eopithecus ; but he 

 has since (1862) retracted this opinion, and, on reexamination, and 

 with more ample materials at his command, has pronounced it to be- 

 long to a Hyracotherium. There is now, therefore, no Eocene monkey 

 known to palaeontologists unless M. Rutimeyer is right in referring to 



* Annals of Nat. Hist., vol. iv. No. 23, Nov. 1839. 



