Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 1.djvu/360

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

of these bodies, from the English chalk, have been figured in the Org. Rem. vol. II. PI. XIII. fig. 70 to 79.

Another is supposed to belong to the genus Millepora. This is generally brown, and is in the state of oxydized iron, as resulting from the decomposition of pyrites. These fossils exist in the Wiltshire soft chalk.

Lastly, Sbark's teeth. These also occur frequently in the English stratum.

Messrs. Cuvier and Brongniart state, that there are many more fossils in the chalk stratum of France than those which have been just referred to. This is also the case with the fossils of the English chalk; since the following may be enumerated as occurring in this stratum. Rugous palates, and, though rarely, the scales and vertebra of fishes. Three or four species of stellæ marinæ. A long saccular bivalve, with an uncommonly thin shell, of which so little has been hitherto saved, as not to give a chance of gaining a knowledge of its general form, or the structure of its hinge. A bivalve, which approaches to a circular form, but is so thin as to afford but little hope of discovering its genus. A bivalve, nearly circular, the margin turning upwards so as to give it a patella or disk form, with numerous long processes passing from the margin and external surface, and fixing it to other bodies. A small pecten with sharp angulated ribs, not exceeding a quarter of an inch in length. A bivalve, not an eighth of an inch in length, finely striated longitudinally, bearing a bright polish, and seemingly possessing its original light brown colour. Plates of the tortoise echinite, and several remains apparently of other species of this genus.

When to these are added the remains of various echini, such as conulites, cassidites, and spatangites, and the different spines of echini which are found in this stratum; and when it is also considered