22 
CORALLINE CRAG. 
two formations, it misleads, since, remote as it is, and severed from 
the present time by a considerable sequence of deposits and events, 
the oldest part of the Red Crag is less removed, palaeontologically, 
from the present time (and far Jess so from the Chillesford beds) 
than it is from the Coralline Crag thus associated with it in name, 
but dissociated from it in fact.” I have quoted this passage in 
full, for it appears to be one of the earliest instanees in which an 
observer in this country was able to shake himself free from the 
fetters of mere numerical statistics in dealing with the Crag 
faunas. Wood, putting on one side the method of fixing the age 
of a Tertiary deposit by the proportion that it contains of species 
living in any part of the world, points to broad differences in the 
general characters of the Coralline and Red Crag faunas, and to 
the great contrast of the older one to that of the Red Crag or 
that now inhabiting the British seas. He realizes that extensive 
climatic chancres and migration show a lapse of time and are good 
grounds for distinction, though the vanished species may still be 
found living in other parts of the world. 
About this date there was a good deal of discussion as to the 
correlation of the English and Belgian Crags, but the arguments 
have lost their force now that it is known that the Scaldisian, 
Biestian, and Miocene faunas were not always properly separated. 
The principal papers were by R. A. C. Godwin-Austen,'^ Prof. 
E. Ray Lankester,f and Prof A. von Koenon.f 
The next paper containing new facts relating to the Coralline 
Crag was published in 1868 by Prof Lankester.§ This com¬ 
munication deals principally with the mammalian remains found 
at the base of the Crags and has already been referred to in 
connexion with the difficult question of their origin (p. 8). 
Later in the same year God win-Austen, in his address to the 
geological section of the British Association,|| again dealt with 
the physical conditions under which the Crags on both sides of 
the North Sea were deposited. He assigned the Coralline Crag 
to a depth of 40 fathoms, and spoke of it as the lowest condition, 
or the deepest, of which our English area offers any illustration.” 
In 1870 Prof Lankester^, after pointing to the probable 
source of the mammalian remains in the various bone-beds of 
Norfolk and Suffolk, gave a full list of the fossils found in the 
box-stones.’’ This important paper has been referred to in the 
previous chapter. Prof. Lankester concluded that the box-stones 
and their fossils belong to an older period than either the Coralline 
or Red Crag. 
* On the Kainozoic Formations of Belgium. Quart. Journ. Geol. Sod., vol. xxii.’ 
p. 228 . ( 1866 .) 
t On the Crags of Suffolk and Antwerp. Geol. Mag., vol. ii. pp. 103,149 (1865); 
Are the Coralline Crag of Suffolk and the Black Crag of Belgium contemporaneous 
Deposits ? Ibid., vol. iv. p. 91. (1867.) 
J On the Belgian Tertiaries. Ibid., vol. iv. p. 501. (1867.) 
§ The Suffolk Bone-bed and the Diestfan or Biack Crag in England. Ibid. 
vol. V. p. 254. 
11 Geol. Mag., vol. v. p: 469, and Bep. Brit. Assoc, for 1868, and Geol. Nat. 
Hist. Repertory, vol. ii. p. 229. 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvi. p. 493. 
