61 
up till now, with the exception of the inroads at different 
periods of the earlier and later Pliocene seas near Folkestone 
and St. Erth, the whole of the area of the English Channel 
had been non-marine from the close of the Oligocenes, or early 
Miocenes. 
As already stated, the fauna of the yellow clay is one proper 
to muddy flats, brackish rather than saline, indicating the 
proximity of fresh water. That of the hard mud postulates 
different conditions; creek shells are more prevalent, the 
Scrobicularia is replaced by an allied but different species, and 
many marine deeper water forms make their appearance. Some 
of these are rolled as if transported after death from deeper 
water, but the fauna as a whole would indicate the bathymetrical 
range of the hard mud bed to be at, or just below, the verge 
of lower tide mark. 
In the last or silt stage, the creek shells become much 
scarcer, and a true marine fauna obtains. The Pholas beds 
trend westwards inland, and some years back traces of the 
silt were found towards Medmeney. In this direction the silt 
bed became the recipient of a land fauna brought in by a river 
flowing eastwards as shown by^ the mammalia and neo-marine 
mollusca obtained between East Wittering to Danner Gap 
and in the silt itself. 
Reasoning from the above data we have in successive order 
of appearance, 1st, a fluviatile gravel with beds of fresh water 
shell bearing marls, then 2nd, estuarine clays deepening into 
3rd, a creek or littoral-laminarian bed, and finally into 4th, 
a laminarian-coralline or deep water deposit. As the Pholades, 
the yellow clay, and hard mud beds, are on or near the same 
level, and the Pholades are replete with silt and silt shells, the 
presumption is that the silt bed at one time existed over all, 
and the mere fact of the yellow and hard mud beds occuring 
so high above the level of the present silt appears to be owing 
to their extreme tenacity and resistance to denudation rather 
than to their lateness of origin. 
An analysis of the lists of organic remains appended 
Since the above was written, Mr. C. Reid has found at Stone, on the Hampshire 
coast, a deposit of similar age containing elephant remains and plants, 
including a S. European Maple: probably a remnant of the Selsey river here 
referred to, 
