80 On the Phosphoric Strata of the Chalk Formation. 
of the fossiliferous strata, skirting the edge of the Alice Holt Forest. 
The fossils in tiiis locality are chiefly confined to the upper bed at the 
immediate junction of the sand and gault clay ; they are similar in 
character to those found at Wiecklesham, but the nodules are generally 
larger, many of them being of the size of a man's fist. 
At jiresent there are but lew facts extant which bear upon the 
agricultural properties of these fossils ; yet the few which have 
been noticed are strikingly illustrative of their value as fer- 
tilizers. In the parish of P'rensham, about ten or fifteen years 
ago, the late proprietor of one of the fields where the fossils 
abound was in the practice of carting away, at leisure times, very 
large quantities of the lower part of the gault clay embracing the 
fossil bed ; it was taken to another part of the farm where the 
land is of a sandy nature. Upon the crops in succeeding years 
the good arising from the application of this soil was evident at 
a glance. The proprietor was induced to cart this soil upon his 
other land on account of the numbers of fossils which it con- 
tained, he then supposing they were rich in carbonate of lime. 
Distance prevented the cartage being continued to a much greater 
extent. 
A second instance occurred in April, 1847, when, in making 
some drains in a field in which the water occasionally rose to the 
surface in very wet weather, after digging through a layer of hard 
shingly gravel to the depth of between five and six i'eet, a thin 
indurated bed of mortar-like stuff was found, which effeclunlly 
resisted the downward progress of the water. It was about six 
inches thick, resting upon dry sand. This mortar-like stuff was 
at that period suspected to be of coprolitic origin, and the men 
employed in draining were directed to spread it carefully over 
the surface about half a rod wide on the lower side of each drain. 
It need scarcely be obs^-rved after the above description, that 
soil in its natural state is one of the very poorest ; yet upon these 
strips of land below the drains many of the Swede turnij)s with 
which the field was sown last year, in spite of the unfavourable 
season, attained a weight of from 15 to 20 lbs. each. 
The indurated band found at the bottom of the drains is the 
correlative of the lower Wrecklesham bed, the overl\ing gault 
having been denuded at some former geological ej)och, and 
subsequently replaced by the drifted gravel of a more recent 
period. It may be also advisable to state, as an indication of the 
fertilizing properties of these fossils in their unprepared condi- 
tion, that in digging for them in the commons the upper and 
softer fossils were invariably found to be enveloped with a thick 
fibrous network of the small rootlets of the furze and other plants 
which grew above them ; and that, whenever a crack occurred in 
a fossil, the spongioles had insinuated themselves into it, just iu 
