LOWER EOCENE, ENGLAND. 
265 
Eocene Proteaceous Fruit. 
Petrophiloides Richardsoni. London 
Clay, Sheppey. Natural size. 
Ettingsnausen remarked in 1851 Fig. 206 . 
that live of the fossil species from 
Sheppey, named by Bowerbank,* 
were specimens of the same fruit 
(see Fig. 206 ), in different states 
of preservation ; and Mr. Carru- 
thers, having examined the origi¬ 
nal specimens now in the British 
Museum, tells me that all these 
cones from Sheppey may be re¬ 
duced to two species, which have 
an undoubted affinity to the two 
existing Australian genera above Section of cone show- 
mentioned, although their perfect 
identity in structure can not be made out. 
The contiguity of land may be inferred not only from these 
vegetable productions, but also from the teeth and bones of 
crocodiles and turtles, since these creatures, as Dean Cony- 
beare remarked, must have resorted to some shore to lay 
their eggs. Of turtles there were numerous species referred 
to extinct genera. These are, for the most part, not equal in 
size to the largest living tropical turtles. A sea-snake, which 
must have been thirteen feet long, of the genus Palceophis 
before mentioned (p, 261 ), has also been described by Pro¬ 
fessor Owen from Sheppey, of a different species from that 
of Bracklesham, and called P. toliapiciis. A true crocodile, 
also, Crocodilus toliapims^ and another saurian more nearly 
allied to the gavial, accompany the above fossils ; also the 
relics of several birds and quadrupeds. One of these last 
belongs to the new genus HyracotJierium of Owen, of the 
hog tribe, allied to Chseropotamus; another is a Lophiodon; 
a third a pachyderm called Coryphodon eocmnus by Owen, 
larger than any existing tapir. All these animals seem to 
have inhabited the banks of the great river which floated 
down the Sheppey fruits. They imply the existence of a 
mammiferous fauna antecedent to the period when nummu- 
lites flourished in Europe and Asia, and therefore before the 
Alps, Pyrenees, and other mountain-chains now forming the 
backbones of great continents, were raised from the deep ; 
nay, even before a part of the constituent rocky masses now 
entering into the central ridges of these chains had been de¬ 
posited in the sea. 
The marine shells of the London clay confirm the infer¬ 
ence derivable from the plants and reptiles in favor of a 
high temperature. Thus many species of Conus and Valuta 
* Bowerbank, FossiLEruits and Seeds of London Clay, Plates ix. and x. 
12 
