10 
NODULE BEDS, 
The Nodule Bed of the Crag contains the usual shells of the 
Bed or Coralline Crag, together with a miscellaneous collection 
of various rocks, in small waterworn pieces and in larger blocks. 
Amongst these Chalk-flints and flint-pebbles are the most plentiful, 
many of the former being unworn and partly covered with the 
shells of a Bolanus; quartz and quartzite also occur, and pieces 
of sandstone (Carboniferous and Greywether), of various Jurassic 
and Cretaceous beds, of granite and other igneous rocks, and of 
London Clay septaria (sometimes large). The most peculiar of 
the rock-contents are, however, the box-stones,” above referred 
to. These are irregular rounded lumps of a tough, brownish 
sandstone, shown, by the contained fossils, to be of comparatively 
late Tertiary age, though older than the Coralline Crag, and 
lithologically unlike any members of the English Tertiary forma¬ 
tions. 
Besides the phosphatic nodules, great numbers of phospha- 
tized fossils occur, which, like the rocks, are of various ages. 
Among them are numerous fragments of Jurassic Ammonites, 
imbedded in a matrix similar to that containing the London Clay 
species. Like most of the Eocene nodules they are probably 
altered fragments of septaria, or clay-pebbles. Other Jurassic and 
Cretaceous fossils are found in an unphosphatized or little phos- 
phatized state, but these appear originally to have been included 
in a matrix of different character ; for instance, fragments of the 
ferruginous Marlstone of the Middle Lias, full of Rhyncfionella 
tetrahedra, do not seem to have been in any way altered. Phos- 
phatized wood of palms and conifers is also associated in the 
Nodule Bed with fragments of silicified wood. The most abun¬ 
dant fossils consist of sharks’ teeth and other remains from the 
London Clay, of teeth of many land mammals (pig, rhinoceros, 
mastodon, tapir, deer, hipparion, etc.), derived from some'older 
Pliocene beds, and of many bones and teeth of marine mammals 
of like age, pieces of the ribs of whales being indeed among the 
most common things to be seen on the phosphate heaps, and ear- 
bones being not infrequent. 
The only place where the Nodule Bed has been worked 
beneath the Coralline Crag is at Sutton, where, however, the pit 
did not prove remunerative, and was soon filled up. This section 
appears only to have been examined by Professors Lankester 
and Prestwich, and the following account is taken from their 
notes. Prof. Lankester merely mentions the occurrence of certain 
derivative mammalian bones, and of box stones, at the base of 
the Coralline Crag as well as under the Bed Crag ; Prof. Prest¬ 
wich gives fuller particulars as to the character of the deposit.* 
The old pit lay on the south side of Sutton-farm Hill, where 
the surface of the London Clay is 8 feet above the level of the 
Biver Deben. Immediately on the London Clay we find a bed, 
from \ to \\ foot thick, of Phosphatic nodules, not to be dis- 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvii, p. 116. (1871.) 
