Geological Society , 
1811 .] 
s5r 
gradually as they termiRate towards the 
east and west. 
The quantity of fruit or ligneous seed- 
vessels and berries, which has been found 
in this stratum at Shepey, is prodigious, 
Mr. Francis Crow, of Fevershain, has 
procured from this fertile spot a very 
large collection ; and, by carefully compa¬ 
ring each individual specimen by their 
internal as w'ell as their external appear¬ 
ance, he has been enabled to select seven 
hundred specimens, none of which are 
duplicates, and very few agree with any 
known seed-vessels. These vegetable re¬ 
mains have also been found on the oppo¬ 
site Essex shore, but in very small num¬ 
bers. They have also been met with in 
that part of the stratum which has been 
examined at Kew. At Highgate and at 
Shepey a resinous matter, highly inflam¬ 
mable, of a darkish-brown colour, and 
yielding, on friction, a peculiar odour, 
has also been found. This substance has 
been conjectured to exist in an unaltered 
state, and this indeed seems to be the 
fact from its resinous fracture; but it 
must be observed, on the other hand, 
that pieces of it occur which are pene¬ 
trated by iron pyrites. 
This stratum is also rendered exceed¬ 
ingly interesting by its surface appearing 
to have been the residence of land ani¬ 
mals, not a single vestige of which seems 
to have been found in any of the nume¬ 
rous subjacent strata of the British series. 
i^Ir. Jacobs relates that the remains of 
an elephant were found at Shepey, The 
remains of tlie elephant,, stagf and hippo-, 
potamis, have also been dug up at Kew, 
At "iValton in Essex, not only the remains 
of the elephant, stag, and hippopotamus^ 
have beetj discovered, but also remains 
of the rhinoccroSy and of the Irish fossil 
elk. 
It has been generally supposed that 
these remains were contained witiiin the 
stratum of blue clay; but the circum¬ 
stances under which they are found seem 
ratiier to warrant tlie conclusion, that 
they were deposited on the surface of 
tl'.ose low spots where abruptions of the 
superior part of this stratum had taken 
place. Thus the remains of the elephant 
mentioned by Mr. Jacobs were not in the 
cliJ, but in a low situation at a distance 
from it; so also the remains of land ani¬ 
mals in Essex occur a little below the 
surface, in a line with the marshes, vvhich 
are a very few feet above high-water 
mark. By a communication of the late 
Mr. William Trimmer of Kew, it ap¬ 
peared that he found, under the sandy 
Moktiily Mag. No. 219, 
gravel, a bed of earth, highly calcareous 
from one foot to nine feet in thickness; 
beneath this a bed of gravel a few feet 
thick, containing water, and Itien the 
main stratum of blue clay. At the bot¬ 
tom of the sandy gravel, he observed that 
the bones of the hippopotamus, deer, and 
elephant, were met with; but not in those 
parts of the field to wliich the calcareous 
bed did not extend. Here also a consi¬ 
derable number of small and apparently 
fresh-water shells, and at the bottom 
'snail-shells, were found. Does it not 
seem that the first appearance or crea¬ 
tion of land-animals was on the dry land 
of this stratum, and that they were over¬ 
whelmed in these spots by that sea which 
deposited the present superincumbent 
strata of gravel? 
STEATA BETWEEN THE CLAY AND THS 
CHALK. 
It is almost impossible to speak with 
precision of the subjacent strata, which 
are situated between the clay and the 
chalk, since very considerable variations 
occur as to their thickness, and indeed 
as to the form in which their constituent 
paits are disposed; and since there exist 
but few sections, at least in ihe neigh¬ 
bourhood of the metropolis, which pre¬ 
sent a view of the strata composing this 
formation. They are included in the 
following account by IMr. Farey: A 
sand stratum, of very variable thickness, 
next succeeds, and lies immediately 
upon the chalk, in most instances, as 
between Greemvich and Woolwich, oil 
the banks of the Thames; which has olten 
been called the Blackheath sand: it fre¬ 
quently has a bed of cherty sandstone 
in it, called the gray-weathers*.” 
On the upper part of a mound at New 
Charlton some traces of the lowest part 
of the blue clay appear, covered by not 
more than a foot of vegetable earth. 
This layer of clay does not seem to ex¬ 
ceed two feet in thickness, which, in. 
deed, it possesses only on the top of soma 
of those mounds, which occur so fre¬ 
quently as to render the surface in this 
district very irregular. In tins clay 
oysters of different iorins are tound ; some 
approaching to tlie recent species, and 
others longer and somewhat vaulted ; but 
•'they are in general so tender as to render 
it very difficult to obtain a toleralile spe¬ 
cimen. With these also occur numerous 
Cerithia, Turritslla, and Cytherecs, Lam. 
all of which are in a similar state with 
the oysters, and appear to be shells 
^ Report on Derbyshire, 5:c. voh i- p- 
3 A sUiOtly 
