i66 



THE STORY OF THE EARTH. 



pt clown into these tertiary beds, which are 

 now exposed Oil the northern slope of the North 

 1 towns. 



With the oscillations in level a part of this 

 land area at least supported the vegetation which 

 furnished those beds of lignite which extend by 

 Woolwich and Bromley, and the forest trees, which 

 show by their leaves a marked resemblance to 

 those of Gelinden, This indicates that the an- 

 cient connection, by continuous land, between 

 the south-east of what is now England and Bel- 

 gium and Hanover, was maintained in the tertiary 

 period just as it had been in the older epoch of 

 the Wea 



In one locality, near Rheims in France, the 

 lower tertiary beds have yielded many remains 



of mammals which fore- 

 shadow lemurs and ro- 

 dents. Among these oc- 

 curs the Neoplagiaulax 

 which seems like a sur- 

 vival of the Plagiaulax of 

 the- Purbeck beds. This 



is worth recalling on ac- 

 count of tin* resemblance 

 of the* tertiary plants of 

 this horizon with the cre- 

 taceous Bora. The Lon- 

 don clay indicates depression which banished the 

 shore- of the tertiary land to some distance, 

 rhei oscillations in its level which varied 



both the mineral character of the Stratum and 



the fossil life. 



.v the base there is usually a bed of bi 

 rounded flint pebbles known as the basement 



bed, w:tii sharks' teeth. The clay gives evi- 



1 IO. '■ ma Morris) in 



I Man- 1 Sand. 



