222 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
and whilst the lower thus stood out as a sort of terrace, some portions of the 
upper strata would be left undenuded thereupon, the old wave-washed 
rocks of a former period ; hence the second clitF and its fantastic and highly 
picturesque configuration. This theory is strikingly borne out by the fact 
that, wherever these Eocene beds appear, there the terrace appears also, 
prominently noticeable, as is the outcrop of the gault from beneath the 
chalk all round the valley of the Weald of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex in 
England. 
The beds referred to are evidently of considerable depth, although, from 
being situate but very little above the water-line, their extent downwards 
cannot easily be arrived at. The upper portion, for several yards in thick- 
ness, is composed of clay, seeming to have been re-deposited, and in which 
few, if any, fossils are met with. Immediately below this stratum is a great 
thickness of blue clay, in some places hardened into the compact argil- 
laceous limestone before mentioned. Both as clay and as stone this bed is 
literally crowded with fossils, in a state of preservation quite startling to 
the stranger. Many of the shells retain their pristine colour, and look 
equally bright and perfect with those of the still living moUusca thrown 
upon the beach. Were it not for their strange and ancient shapes, it would 
be no easy matter to distinguish between these relics of an immensely dis- 
tant age and shells of the present day. In state of keeping, the marine 
exuvial Eocene beds are infinitely better preserved than those which, found 
in the raised estuary deposits near Melbourne, are regarded as scarcely, if 
at all, anterior to the human period. 
My own experience in searching for organisms among these Eocene 
strata, reminded me somewhat of a discovery made by the " Uncommercial 
Traveller," — to wit, that " when at night one drunken man unaccountably 
turned up, another drunken man assuredly turned up soon after to keep 
the first company," What I noted being, that whenever I dropped upon 
a fine large specimen, I, without exception, dug up another or two close 
beside it. Not by any means, I should imagine, the result of chance, but 
that the shells rolling along an uneven sea-bottom would naturally fall 
into holes and hollows, and just as naturally be washed from ofi* any ele- 
vated positions. 
^STautili, cypridae, conidse, volutidse, dentalia, cerithidae, siliquarias, muri- 
cidse, and bryozoa, are very common, scarcely a square yard of ground 
being free from some of them, either perfect or in fragments. Among 
the cypridas is that singular form Ci/prcea eximia, and others of gigantic 
dimensions. 
The great quantity of tropical species, few, if any, of which are now dis- 
coverable in Victorian waters, suggest a variation of climate since the 
Eocene period in this part of the world, analogous to that remarked in the 
northern hemisphere. JN'or is the great quantity of molluscous and echino- 
dermatous, together with an almost total absence of crustacean and verte- 
bral remains, less worthy of remark. Although the amount of life, ac- 
cording to the former types, must have been prodigiously developed during 
the period, but very few traces of any superior marine animals are dis- 
cernible. In two hours, and within a space of barely twenty square yards, 
I dug out with a common spade from fifty to a hundred distinct species of 
shells, echinidse, and corals ; yet neither on the above nor any subsequent 
occasion have I there met with either crustacean or vertebrated remains. 
The absence of the latter is the more remarkable, seeing that the Cestracion, 
common enough in Australian waters, especially feeds upon shelly mollusca, 
and might therefore be expected to frequent a place whereat such par- 
ticular food happened to be abundant. 
