formation. It includes none of the remains of any of the lost foods, such as the Cornu ammonis, Encrinites, &c. Mr. Jacobs indeed speaks of one imperfect specimen of Belemnites and of Astroitæ having been found, but at the same time as being very uncommon; Mr. Brander however does not appear to have met with any of these older fossils; nor have any of them been discovered either at Kew or at Highgate. Hence it seems reasonable to conclude, that the single imperfect belemnite and the few astroitæ: were not inhabitants of the sea at the period when this stratum was deposited, but were washed out of some of the more ancient strata, and lodged by accident in the bed where they were found.[1]
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 Feversham, has procured from this fertile spot a very large collection, and by carefully comparing each individual specimen by their internal as well as their external appearance, 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 remains have also been found on the opposite Essex shore, but in very small numbers. 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 inflammable, 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
- ↑ It appears to be necessary to guard against two sources of error whilst appropriating fossils to their respective strata: one is the circumstance here alluded to, where the fossils of a preexistent stratum have been washed out by the waters while depositing a more recent stratum: the other is where, at the line of junction of two strata, the animal of the one are round within the borders of the other stratum; a circumstance by no means difficult to be conceived or explained.
