2 
the three north-eastern counties, from the banks of the Thames, some miles below London, it 
is singular that a considerable distinction in the site or accompaniments of the shells should be 
peculiar to each of the counties. 
The shells in Essex are lodged in a strong blue Clay which makes a tenacious soil. 
All through Suffolk in alight or blowing Sand, which, in many parts of the course of Crag, 
is some of the worst land in the county. 
Through Norfolk the shells lie much nearer to, or in colitact with the top of the Chalk, and 
under a loamy soil, on or n ear some of the best land in Fleg and the Vale of Aylesham, 
In the present state of our knowledge of these Strata, and the shells they contain, any attempt 
at a minute division of them, seems, therefore, more likely to perplex, than instruct the reader. 
The strong features only of the country, will therefore, first be noticed. The order of 
nature which is shown by my discoveries, suggests the outline of the work, and the different 
Strata serving like chapters for the principal divisions, the subject will be so treated; taking 
each of their outcrops in succession, from East to West, The figures of organized Fossils in 
each Stratum are printed on coloured paper, to correspond with the most general colour of the 
matter in which they are imbedded, and also with that by which their courses are represented 
on the Map ; where otherwise, as in the Chalk, it will be particularly noticed under each head. 
It may be necessary to remark, that the Strata over Chalk, occupy much of the eastern, 
south, and south-eastern coast of England, and seem to be only parts of much larger districts 
of corresponding Strata on the Continent. 
In England this class is separated into three portions, by vacancies on the heights of Hamp- 
shire, and in the sea by the Wash. The mouth of the Humber makes also a lesser division— 
but for these; the class might be said to extend from Dorsetshire to Yorkshire, for Pool 
Harbour is in one extremity, and Bridlington Bay in the other. 
The northern-most of the three principal portions. North and South of the Humber, is 
small, long, and narrow, lying low, and as yet little noticed for organized Fossils, except 
large bones washed out of the crumbly cliffs of Holderness, which correspond with those 
washed out of similar cliffs on the coast of East Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, East Kent, and South 
Hants. 
The middle and principal portion extends north-eastward from the Hampshire Hills to the 
coast of Norfolk ; it flanks the Chalk through Surrey and Kent, on the south side of the 
Thames ; the Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire Chalk Hills on the north side. It embraces 
the whole Estuary of the Thames ; spreads over nearly all Essex, three- fourths of Suffolk, and 
all the eastern half of Norfolk, except the Vales about Norwich and Aylesham. 
The southern portion, chiefly in Hampshire and Dorsetshire, narrows both ways from its 
widest part about the new Forest, to its western extremity, near Dorchester, and its eastern, 
near Brighton. Its widest part is from Newport in the Isle of Wight, to the similar elevations 
of Chalk and down lands, between Salisbury and Winchester. Each of these districts is 
abundantly stored with organized Fossils. Large teeth and bones, greatly resembling those on 
the Continent, have been most frequently collected from the shores of the middle portion, and 
and large vertebrae further inland, at Whitlingham, Leiston old Abbey, Diss, Hoxney, and 
Hawkedon. 
