Ch. XIX.] 



ELEPHANT-BED. 



287 



these liollows could have been swept clean except by some extraordinary 

 catastrophe. 



The frequent angularity of the flints in the drift of Barcombe and 

 other places is also insisted upon as another indication of denuding 

 causes differing in kind and degree from any which man has witnessed. 

 But all who have examined the gravel at the base of a chalk-cliff, in 

 places where it is not peculiarly exposed to the continuous and violent 

 action of the waves, are aware that the flints retain much angularity. 

 This may be seen between the Old Harry rocks in Dorsetshire and 

 Christchurch in Hampshire. Throughout the greater part of that line 

 of coast the cliffs are formed of tertiary strata, capped by a dense 

 covering of gravel formed of flints slightly abraded. As the waste of 

 the cliffs is rapid, the old materials are gradually changed for new 

 ones on the beach ; nevertheless we have here an example of angles 

 being retained after two periods of attrition ; first, where the gravel 

 was spread originally over the Eocene deposits ; and, secondly, after 

 the Eocene sands and clays were undermined and the modern cliff 

 formed. 



Angular flint-breccia is not confined to the Weald, nor to the trans- 

 verse gorges in the chalk, but extends along the neighboring coast from 

 Brighton to Rottingdean, where it was called by Dr. Mantell "the 

 elephant-bed," because the bones of the mammoth abound in it, with 

 those of the horse and other mammalia. The following is a section of 

 this formation as it appears in the Brighton cliff.'^ 



Fig. S32. 



A. Chalk -with layers of flint dipping slightly to the south. 



b. Ancient beach, consisting of fine" sand, from one to four feet thick, covered by shingle from 



five to eight feet thick of pebbles of chalk-flint, granite, and other rocks, with broken 

 shells of recent marine species, and bones of cetacea. 



c. Elephant-bed, about fifty feet thick, consisting of layers of white chalk rubble, with broken 



chalk-flints, often more confusedly stratified than" is represented in this drawing, in whicJi 

 deposit are found bones of ox, deeV, horse, and mammoth. 

 <?. Sand and shingle of modern beach. 



* See also Sir R. Murchisoii, Geol. Quart. Journ. vol. vii. p. 365. 



