NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



151 



TossiL "Remains trom Terti.^y Strata at Peckham and Dulwich. 

 — Sir, — Having paid some considerable amount of attention to tlie works in 

 progress for the Great High Level Sewer, on the south side of the Thames, 

 allow me to offer a few remarks on the fauna and flora discoverable in the series 

 of deposits passed through both in the open cutting at Peckham and the tunnel 

 at Diilwich. No one can doubt their analogy to the Woolwich and Reading 

 series. 



Pirst, then, at Peckham I have collected Faludin(S, and associated with them 

 what has the appearance of theii- opercula. The Paludina-band is eight inches 

 in thickness, quite indurated, and about forty -five to fifty feet from the surface. 

 On splitting open these blocks, fine casts of Uniouicue, with fish-scales and 

 spines, are exposed, amidst a perfect pavement of Paludina lenta. Here and 

 there a remarkable shell occurs, which seems referable to the marine genus 

 Voluta ; but as true marine beds are in immediate contact both above and 

 below, it may be a derivative fossil. This hypothesis, however, is not borne 

 out by their occurrence in the marine strata, or rather what may be considered 

 estuarine deposits. In these are great numbers of two varieties of oysters, 

 Ostrea tenera and Ostrea edidina, Mytilus, Cjjrena cmieiformis, Cerithium, Mela- 

 nia inquinata, Turritella imhricataria, and a very beautiful Area, at present un- 

 described. I must not omit to mention that the oysters have frequently 

 Calyptrea troclieformis adhering to them. In your number for Pebruary Mr. 

 Evans mentions having discovered the elytron or wing-case of a species 

 of Di/tiscus. With the most careful scrutmy I have not found any insect- 

 remains as yet ; but I met with a portion of fish-scale, which at first sight 

 appears so much like a wing-case, that I was at the moment prepared to 

 indorse Mr. Evans' statement. Traces of lignite close up the Peckham 

 catalogue. 



In the Pive Pields, Dulwich, a tminel-shaft introduces us at fifty feet to the 

 plastic clay, charged with the remains of the Lower Eocene flora. I must refer 

 the geological reader to the admirable paper by Mr. Prestwich, published 

 in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. x., 1854, illus- 

 trative of his researches in analogous deposits at Heading, and Mr, De la 

 Condamine's, at Counter Hill. The plate Avliich accompanies it figures speci- 

 mens identical with those collected by myself at Dulwich with one exception. 

 My specimens yield one form not figured by Mr. Prestwich ; it looks as if re- 

 lated to Conifer^e. 



The general reader may be interested to know that leaves of oak, maple, 

 poplar, and wiUow are abundant, associated with estuarine shells — Cyrena 

 deperdlta and C. cuneiformis ; and a new species occur, which I propose to call 

 Cyrena Diilwicliiensis. In some cases it was possible to take hold of the stem, 

 and lift a portion of the leaf from the clay. Plow interesting is the thought 

 that in this age we should be able to handle the autumnal leaves, maybe, of 

 forests that flourished during the unreckoned eons of the Lower Tertiary epoch. 

 These leafy remains sometimes form, as it were, a thin blackish carpet over 

 several square feet of clay-surface. 



I believe this is the first time that remains of a flora on an extensive scale 

 have been discovered within the metropolitan area of the London basin. 

 Apologising for trespassing so much upon your space, I am, your obedient ser- 

 vant, Charles Hickman, Hon. Curator Lambeth Museum of Natural History. 



P.S. Since writing the above I have seen a mammalian bone, highly charged 

 with iron pyrites, found in a greenish sand, below the leafy deposit ; ' and have 

 myself discovered a ventral scute of the crocodile, associated with drifted 

 wood, bored by teredines. 



Letter erom Mr. Salter on Major Austin's Paper on the Silurian 

 Rocks of Ireland, and on Mr. Lee's Discovery of the Pteraspis in 



