180 



LYELL'S ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 



Fossil Mammalia. 



Terebellum, Cancellaria, Crassatelia, and others, with four or 

 more species of Nautilus. (See Figures, p. 179.) There are 

 fish, also, which indicate a warm climate ; among which may be 

 mentioned a sword-fish, {Tetrapterus priscits, Agassiz,) about 

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

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



These last have been found in the island of Sheppey, which 

 is composed of London clay, where also, as I learn from M. 

 Agassiz, the remains of no less than fifty other species of fish 

 have been discovered. It does not appear that the fossil plants 

 and fruits, so numerous in this same island, or the fossil plants 

 of the corresponding Eocene formation of Paris, have by any 

 means so tropical an aspect as the shells, but rather indicate such 

 a flora as might be found on the borders of the Mediterranean. 



Besides the marine formation called London clay, there are 

 freshwater strata of the Eocene period in the Isle of Wight, and 

 opposite coast of Hampshire. They contain shells, such as 

 Limnea, and Planorbis ; Gyrogonites, or the fossil seeds of 

 Chara (see p. 47.) ; and the bones of several quadrupeds of ex- 

 tinct genera, such as Palseotherium, Anoplotherium, and ChtEro- 

 potamus, which were lately found by the Rev. W. D. Fox, near 

 Binstead. 



It has already been remarked that fossil mammalia of extinct 

 species have been met with in the Newer Pliocene deposits of 

 England and other countries. Different species characterize the 

 Miocene, and others are proper to the Eocene formations ; and 

 among them nearly every order and family of the herbivorous 

 and carnivorous tribes are represented ; but those which inhabit 

 trees are most rare ; and it was not until very lately, namely in 

 1837, that any remains of quadrumana, or of the ape and mon- 

 key tribe, were discovered. These were obtained about the same 

 time in France and India ; in France, by M. Lartet, near Auch, 

 in the department of Gers, about forty miles west of Toulouse, 

 where the bones of an ape, or gibbon, accompanied those of the 

 rhinoceros, dinotherium, mastodon, and others ; in India, by 

 Captain Cautley and Dr. Falconer, who found the remains of a 

 monkey, with the bones of many extinct quadrupeds, in the 

 Sewalik hills, a lower range of the Himalaya mountains, near 

 Saharunpore. 



The frequent occurrence in the tertiary strata of fossils refera- 

 ble to the highest class of vertebrata is a fact the more worthy 

 of notice, as we shall find in the sequel how great is their rarity 

 in the secondary formations. 



