THE ENTOMOSTRACA OE 
detritus” of Charing, Kent. For specimens of the Detritus, and for a fine suite of its 
Microzoa, I am indebted to Mr. Harris, of Charing.^ To Mr. Morris I am indebted 
for his kind assistance in working out the history and characters of the Entomostraca, 
and for specimens of the foreign Cretaceous rocks, so necessary for comparison. 
I have also to acknowledge the courtesy and kindness shown me by Dr. Baird, 
who has favoured me with much valuable information on the subject of the recent 
Entomostraca. 
The earliest notice of the occurrence of Entomostraca in the English Chalk is 
given in Sir C. Lyell’s ‘ Anniversary Address’ for 1836 (Geol. Proc., vol. ii, p. 365), and 
subsequently in the ‘Elements of Geology^ (1838, p. 55); a single valve of a Cytherella 
being there figured with other Microzoa obtained by Mr. Lonsdale from the Soft Chalk. 
In M. Roemer’s work, ‘ On the Cretaceous Formation of North Germany,’® seven 
species of Entomostraca are figured and described, and in Dr. Reuss’s work, ‘ On the 
Bohemian Chalk,’® seventeen species. M. CornueP has figured and described eight 
species with their varieties from the Neocomian formation of France, M. BosqueP 
twenty species from the Maestricht beds, and Mr. Williamson*’’ has given figures of five 
species from the Charing Detritus, with provisional names. 
There is much confusion in the nomenclature of these species, arising from the 
imperfect descriptions and not very clear figures of MM. Roemer and Reuss, whilst 
MM. Cornuel and Bosquet have renamed certain species already noticed by the 
former. Altogether thirty-eight distinct and seven doubtful species belonging to the 
Cretaceous system have been hitherto noticed. 
Each of the above-mentioned writers, with the exception of M. Cornuel, has made 
^ Mr. Harris has obliged me with the following deseription of the character and locality of the 
“ Detritus.” The village of Charing stands on a hank of “ chalk-detritus,” composed of fragments of 
white and grey chalk, which gradually decrease in size from blocks of one or two feet in diameter, lying at 
the top, to very minute fragments, succeeded hy still finer particles forming a clay-bed, which, in general* 
reposes on the Chlorite-marl (Glauconite). This hank extends from the southern escarpment of the 
adjacent hills, which form part of the northern boundary of the Weald of Kent, in a gradual descent south- 
ward for more than half a mile, where a hollow is formed occupying an area of about fifteen acres, and 
surrounded by chalk-detritus, except at one point, where a rivulet carries off the streams from the chalk- 
hills. In this hollow beneath the vegetable soil, and also under the banks of detritus, lies the clay-bed 
above mentioned, varying from one to twelve feet in depth, of a greyish colour and tough consistence, and 
containing nodules of undecomposed white and grey chalk and of ochreous and argillaceous substances. 
This bed abounds with many varieties of Amorphozoa, Zoophyta, Annelida, Polythalamia, and Entomostraca, 
with fragments of several species of other Crustacea and of Echinodermata, and with many specimens of 
Conchifera, Brachiopoda, and Cephalopoda ; also with hones, teeth, and scales of fish. From its general 
and palaeontological characters, this bed would seem to have been formed from the washings of the neigh- 
bouring chalk-hills at the time they received their present undulated contour. — W. H. 
2 Verstein. Norddeutsch. Kreidebirg. 1840. ® Verstein. Bbhm. Kreideform. 1845. 
^ Mem. Soc. Geol. de France, 2® ser., tom. i, p. 193, 1846 ; tom. hi, p. 241, 1848. 
5 Descript. Entom. foss. Maestricht. 1847. ® Memoir on some Microscopical Objects, &c. 184/. 
