Ch. XX.] MAMMIFEROTJS REMAINS — ISLE OF WIGHT. 281 
origin. There are undoubtedly certain intercalated strata, both 
in the Isle of Wight and coast of Hampshire, marked by a 
slight intermixture of marine and fresh-water shells, sufficient 
to imply a temporary return of the sea, before and after which 
the waters of a lake, or rather, perhaps, some large river, pre- 
vailed *. The united thickness of the fresh-water and inter- 
calated upper marine beds, exposed in a vertical precipice in 
Headen Hill, in the Isle of Wight, is about 400 feet, the 
marine series appearing about half way up in the cliff. 
Eocene mammiferous remains. — Very perfect remains of tor- 
toises and the teeth of crocodiles have been procured from the 
fresh- water strata, but a still more interesting discovery has 
recently been made. The bones of mammalia corresponding 
to those of the celebrated gypsum of Paris, have been disin- 
terred at Binstead, near Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. In the 
ancient quarries near this town a limestone, belonging to the 
lower fresh-water formation, is worked for building. Solid 
beds alternate with marls, wherein a tooth of an Anoplotherium, 
and two teeth of the genus Palaeotherium, were found. These 
remains were accompanied not only by several other fragments 
of the bones of Pachydermata (chiefly in a rolled and injured 
state), but also by the jaw of a new species of Ruminantia, 
apparently closely allied to the genus Moschus f . Mr. T. Allan 
of Edinburgh had several years before found the tooth of an 
Anoplotherium at the same spot, and when we alluded to this 
in our first volume |j we threw out some doubts as to the 
authenticity of his specimen, stating at the same time, that in 
the Binstead beds, if anywhere in our island, we should expect 
such remains to be found. Although we carried our scepticism 
too far, it has been attended with good results, for it induced 
Mr. Pratt to visit Binstead, where he verified and extended the 
discovery of Mr. Allan. 
* See Memoirs of Mr. Webster, Geol. Trans., vol. ii., First Series, vol. i. part i., 
Second Series, and Englefield's Isle of Wight.— Professor Sedgwick, Ann. of 
Phil., 1822, and Lyell, Geol. Trans., vol. ii. Second Series. 
f Pratt, Proceedings of Geol. Soc, No. 18, p. 239. 
t First Edition, p. 153. 
