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<title>The Student's Elements of Geology: Title</title>
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<p><b>The Student’s Elements of Geology</b></p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 250">[ 250 ]</a></p>
<p> </p>
<center><b>Chapter XVI</b><br>
<br>
EOCENE FORMATIONS.</center>
<p class="intro">Eocene Areas of North of Europe. — Table of
English and French Eocene Strata. — Upper Eocene of England.
— Bembridge Beds. — Osborne or St. Helen’s Beds.
— Headon Series. — Fossils of the Barton Sands and
Clays. — Middle Eocene of England. — Shells,
Nummulites, Fish and Reptiles of the Bracklesham Beds and Bagshot
Sands. — Plants of Alum Bay and Bournemouth. — Lower
Eocene of England. — London Clay Fossils. — Woolwich
and Reading Beds formerly called “Plastic Clay.”
Fluviatile Beds underlying Deep-sea Strata. — Thanet Sands.
— Upper Eocene Strata of France. — Gypseous Series of
Montmartre and Extinct Quadrupeds. — Fossil Footprints in
Paris Gypsum. — Imperfection of the Record. — Calcaire
Silicieux. — Gres de Beauchamp. — Calcaire Grossier.
— Miliolite Limestone. — Soissonnais Sands. —
Lower Eocene of France. — Nummulitic Formations of Europe,
Africa, and Asia. — Eocene Strata in the United States.
— Gigantic Cetacean.</p>
<p><b>Eocene Areas of the North of Europe.</b>—The strata
next in order in the descending series are those which I term
Eocene.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig164.jpg" width="348" height="306" alt=
"Fig. 164: Map of the principal Eocene areas of North-western Europe.">
</center>
<p>In the map (Fig. 164) the position of several Eocene areas in
the north of Europe is pointed out. When this map was constructed I
classed as the newer part of the</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 251">[ 251 ]</a></p>
<p>Eocene those Tertiary strata which have been described in the
last chapter as Lower Miocene, and to which M. Beyrich has given
the name of Oligocene. None of these occur in the London Basin, and
they occupy in that of Hampshire, as we have seen at <a href=
"ch15.html#page 244">p. 244</a>, too insignificant a superficial
area to be noticed in a map on this scale. They fill a larger space
in the Paris Basin between the Seine and the Loire, and constitute
also part of the northern limits of the area of the Netherlands
which are shaded in the map.</p>
<p>It is in the northern part of the Isle of Wight that we have the
uppermost beds of the true Eocene best exhibited—namely, those
which correspond in their fossils with the celebrated gypsum of the
Paris basin before alluded to, <a href="ch15.html#page 231">p.
231</a> (see Table, p. 252). That gypsum has been selected by
almost all Continental geologists as affording the best line of
demarkation between the Middle and Lower Tertiary, or, in other
words, between the Lower Miocene and Eocene formations.</p>
<p>In reference to the Table I may observe, that the correlation of
the French and English subdivisions here laid down is often a
matter of great doubt and difficulty, notwithstanding their
geographical proximity. This arises from various circumstances,
partly from the former prevalence of marine conditions in one basin
simultaneously with fluviatile or lacustrine in the other, and
sometimes from the existence of land in one area causing a break or
absence of all records during a period when deposits may have been
in progress in the other basin. As bearing on this subject, it may
be stated that we have unquestionable evidence of oscillations of
level shown by the superposition of salt or brackish-water strata
to fluviatile beds; and those of deep-sea origin to strata formed
in shallow water. Even if the upward and downward movements were
uniform in amount and direction, which is very improbable, their
effect in producing the conversion of sea into land or land into
sea would be different, according to the previous shape and varying
elevation of the land and bottom of the sea. Lastly, denudation,
marine and subaërial, has frequently caused the absence of
deposits in one basin of corresponding age to those in the other,
and this destructive agency has been more than ordinarily effective
on account of the loose and unconsolidated nature of the sands and
clays.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 252">[ 252 ]</a></p>
<center>TABLE OF ENGLISH AND FRENCH EOCENE STRATA.<br>
<small>UPPER EOCENE</small></center>
<center>
<table border="0" cellspacing="6" cellpadding="0" summary=
"Upper, Middle, and Lower eocene strata: left side is English subdivisions, right side is French equivalents.">
<tr>
<td align="center">English subdivisions</td>
<td align="center">French equivalents</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.1. Bembridge series, Isle of Wight,
p. 252.</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.1. Gypseous series of Montmartre,
<a href="page 270">p. 270.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.2. Osborne or St. Helen's series,
Isle of Wight, <a href="page 255">p. 255.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.2 and 3. Calcaire siliceux, or
Travertin Inférieur, <a href="page 273">p. 273.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.3. Headon series, Isle of Wight, <a
href="page 255">p. 255.</a></td>
<td align="left"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.4. Barton series. Sands and clays
of Barton Cliff, Hants, <a href="page 258">p. 258.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">A.4. Grès de Beauchamp, or
Sables Moyens, <a href="page 273">p. 273.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="center"><small>MIDDLE EOCENE</small></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.1. Bracklesham series, <a href=
"page 259">p. 259.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.1. Calcaire Grossier <a href=
"page 274">p. 274</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.2. Alum Bay and Bournemouth beds,
<a href="page 259">p. 259.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.2. Wanting in France?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.2. Wanting in England?</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">B.2. Soissonnais Sands, or Lits
Coquilliers, <a href="page 275">p. 275</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="center"><small>LOWER EOCENE</small></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.1. London Clay, <a href="page 263">
p. 263.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.1. Argile de Londres, Cassel, near
Dunkirk.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.2. Woolwich and Reading series, <a
href="page 267">p. 267.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.2. Argile plastique and lignite, <a
href="page 276">p. 276</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.3. Thanet sands, <a href=
"page 269">p. 269.</a></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">C.3. Sables de Bracheux, <a href=
"page 276">p. 276</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
<br>
<center><small>UPPER EOCENE, ENGLAND.</small></center>
<p><b>Bembridge Series, A.1.</b>—These beds are about 120
feet thick, and, as stated in <a href="ch15.html#page 245">p.
245,</a> lie immediately under the Hempstead beds, near Yarmouth,
in the Isle of Wight, being conformable with those Lower Miocene
strata. They consist of marls, clays, and limestones of
fresh-water, brackish, and marine origin. Some of the most abundant
shells, as <i>Cyrena semistriata</i> var., and <i>Paludina
lenta,</i> <a href="../images1/fig158.jpg">Fig. 163,</a> are common to
this and to the overlying Hempstead series; but the majority of the
species are distinct. The following are the subdivisions described
by the late Professor Forbes:<br>
<i>a.</i> Upper marls, distinguished
by the abundance of <i>Melania turritissima,</i> Forbes (<a href=
"../images1/fig165.jpg">Fig. 165</a>).<br>
<i>b.</i> Lower marls, characterised
by <i>Cerithium mutabile, Cyrena pulchra,</i> etc., and by the
remains of <i>Trionyx</i> (see <a href="../images1/fig165.jpg">Fig.
166</a>).<br>
<i>c.</i> Green marls, often
abounding in a peculiar species of oyster, and accompanied by <i>
Cerithium, Mytilus, Arca, nucula,</i> etc.<br>
<i>d.</i> Bembridge limestones,
compact cream-coloured limestones alternating with shales and
marls, in all of which land-shells are common, especially at
Sconce, near Yarmouth,</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 253">[ 253 ]</a></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig165.jpg" width="418" height="584" alt=
"Fig. 165: Melania turritissima, Fig. 166: Fragment of Carapace of Trionyx, Fig. 167: Bulimus ellipticus, Fig. 168: Helix occlusa, Fig. 169: Paludina orbicularis, Fig. 170: Planorbis discus, Fig. 171: Lymnea longiscata, Fig. 172: Chara tuberculata.">
</center>
<p>as described by Mr. F. Edwards. The <i>Bulimus ellipticus,</i>
Fig. 167, and <i>Helix occlusa,</i> Fig. 168, are among its best
known land-shells. <i>Paludina orbicularis,</i> Fig. 169, is also
of frequent occurrence. One of the bands is filled with a little
globular <i>Paludina.</i> Among the fresh-water pulmonifera, <i>
Lymnea longiscata</i> (Fig. 171) and <i>Planorbis discus</i> (Fig.
170)</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 254">[ 254 ]</a></p>
<p>are the most generally distributed: the latter represents or
takes the place of the <i>Planorbis euomphalus</i> (see <a href=
"../images1/fig175.jpg">Fig. 175</a>) of the more ancient Headon
series. <i>Chara tuberculata</i> <a href="../images1/fig165.jpg">(Fig.
172)</a> is the characteristic Bembridge gyrogonite or
seed-vessel.</p>
<img src="../images1/fig173.jpg" width="126" height="176" alt=
"Fig. 173: Lower molar tooth." align="right">
<p>From this formation on the shores of Whitecliff Bay, Dr. Mantell
obtained a fine specimen of a fan palm, <i>Flabellaria
Lamanonis,</i> Brong., a plant first obtained from beds of
corresponding age in the suburbs of Paris. The well-known
building-stone of Binstead, near Ryde, a limestone with numerous
hollows caused by Cyrenæ which have disappeared and left the
moulds of their shells, belongs to this subdivision of the
Bembridge series. In the same Binstead stone Mr. Pratt and the
Reverend Darwin Fox first discovered the remains of mammalia
characteristic of the gypseous series of Paris, as <i>
Palæotherium magnum</i> (Fig. 174), <i>P. medium, P. minus,
P. minimum, P. curtum, P. crassum</i>; also <i>Anoplotherium
commune</i> (Fig. 173), <i>A. secundarium, Dichobune cervinum,</i>
and <i>Chæropotamus Cuvieri.</i> The Palæothere above
alluded to resembled the living tapir in the form of the head, and
in having a short proboscis, but its molar teeth were more like
those of the rhinoceros. <i>Palæotherium magnum</i> was of
the size of a horse, three or four feet high. The woodcut, Fig.
174, is one of the restorations which Cuvier attempted of the
outline of the living animal, derived from the study of the entire
skeleton.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig174.jpg" width="392" height="246" alt=
"Fig. 174: Palæotherium magnum."></center>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 255">[ 255 ]</a></p>
<p>As the vertical range of particular species of quadrupeds, so
far as our knowledge extends, is far more limited than that of the
testacea, the occurrence of so many species at Binstead, agreeing
with fossils of the Paris gypsum, strengthens the evidence derived
from shells and plants of the synchronism of the two
formations.</p>
<p><b>Osborne or St. Helen’s Series, A.2.</b>—This
group is of fresh and brackish-water origin, and very variable in
mineral character and thickness. Near Ryde, it supplies a freestone
much used for building, and called by Professor Forbes the
Nettlestone grit. In one part ripple-marked flagstones occur, and
rocks with fucoidal markings. The Osborne beds are distinguished by
peculiar species of <i>Paludina, Melania,</i> and <i>
Melanopsis,</i> as also of <i>Cypris</i> and the seeds of <i>
Chara.</i></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig175.jpg" width="403" height="165" alt=
"Fig. 175: Planorbis euomphalus, Fig. 176: Helix labyrinthica.">
</center>
<p><b>Headon Series A.3.</b>—These beds are seen both in
Whitecliff Bay, Headon Hill, and Alum Bay, or at the east and west
extremities of the Isle of Wight. The upper and lower portions are
fresh-water, and the middle of mixed origin, sometimes brackish and
marine. Everywhere <i>Planorbis euomphalus,</i> Fig. 175,
characterises the fresh-water deposits, just as the allied form, P.
discus, <a href="../images1/fig165.jpg">Fig. 170,</a> does the
Bembridge limestone. The brackish-water beds contain <i>Potamomya
plana, Cerithium mutabile,</i> and <i>Potamides cinctus</i> (<a
href="../images/fig37.jpg">Fig. 37</a>), and the marine beds <i>
Venus</i> (or <i>Cytherea</i>) <i>incrassata,</i> a species common
to the Limburg beds and Grès de Fontainebleau, or the Lower
Miocene series. The prevalence of salt-water remains is most
conspicuous in some of the central parts of the formation.</p>
<img src="../images1/fig177.jpg" width="102" height="91" alt=
"Fig. 177: Neritina concava." align="right">
<p>Among the shells which are widely distributed through the Headon
series are <i>Neritina concava</i> (Fig. 177), <i>Lymnea
caudata</i> <a href="../images1/fig178.jpg">(Fig. 178),</a> and <i>
Cerithium concavum</i> <a href="../images1/fig178.jpg">(Fig. 179).</a>
<i>Helix labyrinthica,</i> Say (Fig. 176), a land-shell now
inhabiting the United States, was discovered in this series by Mr.
Searles Wood in Hordwell Cliff. It is also</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 256">[ 256 ]</a></p>
<img src="../images1/fig178.jpg" width="136" height="339" alt=
"Fig. 178: Lymnea caudata, Fig. 179: Cerithium concavum." align=
"left">
<p>met with in Headon Hill, in the same beds. At Sconce, in the
Isle of Wight, it occurs in the Bembridge series, and affords a
rare example of an Eocene fossil of a species still living, though,
as usual in such cases, having no local connection with the actual
geographical range of the species. The lower and middle portion of
the Headon series is also met with in Hordwell Cliff (or Hordle, as
it is often spelt), near Lymington, Hants. Among the shells which
abound in this cliff are <i>Paludina lenta</i> and various species
of <i>Lymnea, Planorbis, Melania, Cyclas, Unio, Potamomya,
Dreissena,</i> etc.</p>
<p>Among the chelonians we find a species of <i>Emys,</i> and no
less than six species of <i>Trionyx</i>; among the saurians an
alligator and a crocodile; among the ophidians two species of
land-snakes (<i>Paleryx,</i> Owen); and among the fish Sir P.
Egerton and Mr. Wood have found the jaws, teeth, and hard shining
scales of the genus <i>Lepidosteus,</i> or bony pike of the
American rivers. This same genus of fresh-water ganoids has also
been met with in the Hempstead beds in the Isle of Wight. The bones
of several birds have been obtained from Hordwell, and the remains
of quadrupeds of the genera <i>Palæotherium (P. minus),
Anoplotherium, Anthracotherium, Dichodon, Dichobune,
Spalacodon,</i> and <i>Hyænodon.</i> The latter offers, I
believe, the oldest known example of a true carnivorous animal in
the series of British fossils, although I attach very little
theoretical importance to the fact, because herbivorous species are
those most easily met with in a fossil state in all save cavern
deposits. In another point of view, however, this fauna deserves
notice. Its geological position is considerably lower than that of
the Bembridge or Montmartre beds, from which it differs almost as
much in species as it does from the still more ancient fauna of the
Lower Eocene beds to be mentioned in the sequel. It therefore
teaches us what a grand succession of distinct assemblages of
mammalia flourished on the earth during the Eocene period.</p>
<p>Many of the marine shells of the brackish-water beds of the
above series, both in the Isle of Wight and Hordwell Cliff, are
common to the underlying Barton Clay: and, on the other hand, there
are some fresh-water shells, such as <i>Cyrena obovata,</i> which
are common to the Bembridge beds, not-</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 257">[ 257 ]</a></p>
<p>withstanding the intervention of the St. Helen’s series.
The white and green marls of the Headon series, and some of the
accompanying limestones, often resemble the Eocene strata of France
in mineral character and colour in so striking a manner as to
suggest the idea that the sediment was derived from the same region
or produced contemporaneously under very similar geographical
circumstances.</p>
<p>At Brockenhurst, near Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, marine
strata have recently been found containing fifty-nine shells, of
which many have been described by Mr. Edwards. These beds rest on
the Lower Headon, and are considered as the equivalent of the
middle part of the Headon series, many of the shells being common
to the brackish-water or Middle Headon beds of Colwell and
Whitecliff Bays, such as <i>Cancellaria muricata,</i> Sowerby, <i>
Fusus labiatus,</i> Sowerby, etc. In these beds at Brockenhurst,
corals, ably described by Dr. Duncan, have recently been found in
abundance and perfection; see Fig. 180, <i>Solenastræa
cellulosa.</i></p>
<img src="../images1/fig180.jpg" width="179" height="194" alt=
"Fig. 180: Solenastræa cellulosa." align="right">
<p>Baron von Könen* has pointed out that no less than
forty-six out of the fifty-nine Brockenhurst shells, or a
proportion of 78 per cent, agree with species occurring in
Dumont’s Lower Tongrian formation in Belgium. This being the
case, we might fairly expect that if we had a marine equivalent of
the Bembridge series or of the contemporaneous Paris gypsum, we
should find it to contain a still greater number of shells common
to the Tongrian beds of Belgium, but the exact correlation of these
fresh-water groups of France, Belgium, and Britain has not yet been
fully made out. It is possible that the Tongrian of Dumont may be
newer than the Bembridge series, and therefore referable to the
Lower Miocene. If ever the whole series should be complete, we must
be prepared to find the marine equivalent of the Bembridge beds, or
the uppermost Eocene, passing by imperceptible shades into the
inferior beds of the overlying Miocene strata.</p>
<p>Among the fossils found in the Middle Headon are <i>Cytherea
incrassata</i> and <i>Cerithium plicatum</i> <a href=
"../images1/fig158.jpg">(Fig. 160).</a> These shells, especially the
latter, are very characteristic of the Lower Miocene, and their
occurrence in the Headon series has been cited as an objection to
the line proposed to be</p>
<p class="fnote">* Quart. Geol. Journal, vol. xx, p. 97, 1864.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 258">[ 258 ]</a></p>
<p>drawn between Miocene and Eocene. But if we were to attach
importance to such occasional passages, we should soon find that no
lines of division could be drawn anywhere, for in the present state
of our knowledge of the Tertiary series there will always be
species common to beds above and below our boundary-lines.</p>
<img src="../images1/fig181.jpg" width="99" height="142" alt=
"Fig. 181: Chama squamosa." align="left">
<p><b>Barton Series</b> (<i>Sands and Clays</i>), <b>A.4</b> <a
href="#page 252">Table</a>—Both in the Isle of Wight, and in
Hordwell Cliff, Hants, the Headon beds, above-mentioned, rest on
white sands usually devoid of fossils, and used in the Isle of
Wight for making glass. In one of these sands Dr. Wright found <i>
Chama squamosa,</i> a Barton Clay shell, in great plenty, and
certain impressions of marine shells have been found in sands
supposed to be of the same age in Whitecliff Bay. These sands have
been called Upper Bagshot in the maps of our Government Survey, but
this identification of a fossiliferous series in the Isle of Wight
with an unfossiliferous formation in the London Basin can scarcely
be depended upon. The Barton Clay, which immediately underlies
these sands, is seen vertical in Alum Bay, Isle of Wight, and
nearly horizontal in the cliffs of the mainland near Lymington.
This clay, together with the Bracklesham beds, presently to be
described, has been termed Middle Bagshot by the Survey. In Barton
Cliff, where it attains a thickness of about 300 feet, it is rich
in marine fossils.</p>
<p>It was formerly confounded with the London Clay, an older Eocene
deposit of very similar mineral character, to be mentioned (<a
href="#page 263">p. 263</a>), which contains many shells in common,
but not more than one-fourth of the whole. In other words, there
are known at present 247 species in the London Clay and 321 in that
of Barton, and only 70 common to the two formations. Fifty-six of
these have been found in the intermediate Bracklesham beds, and the
reappearance of the other 14 may imply a return of similar
conditions, whether of temperature or depth or of a muddy
argillaceous bottom, common to the two periods of the London and
Barton Clays. According to M. Hebert, the most characteristic
Barton Clay fossils correspond to those of the Gres de Beauchamp,
or Sables Moyens, of the Paris Basin, but it also contains many
common to the older Calcaire Grossier.</p>
<br>
<br>
<center><small>SHELLS OF THE BARTON CLAY.</small></center>
<p>Certain foraminifera called Nummulites begin, when we study the
Tertiary formations in a descending order, to make</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 259">[ 259 ]</a></p>
<p>their first appearance in these beds. A small species called <i>
Nummulites variolaria,</i> Fig. 190, is found both on the Hampshire
coast and in beds of the same age in Whitecliff Bay, in the Isle of
Wight. Several marine shells, such as <i>Corbula pisum</i> <a href=
"../images1/fig158.jpg">(Fig. 158),</a> are common to the Barton beds
and the Hempstead or Lower Miocene series, and a still greater
number, as before stated, are common to the Headon series.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig182.jpg" width="371" height="503" alt=
"Fig. 182: Mitra scabra, Fig. 183: Voluta ambigua, Fig. 184: Typhis pungens, Fig. 185: Voluta athleta, Fig. 186: Terebellum fusiforme, Fig. 187: Terebellum sopita, Fig. 188: Cardita sulcata, Fig. 189: Crassatella sulcata, Fig. 190: Nummulites variolaria.">
</center>
<br>
<br>
<center><small>MIDDLE EOCENE, ENGLAND.</small></center>
<p><b>Bracklesham Beds and Bagshot Sands, B.1,</b> <a href=
"#page 252">Table</a>—Beneath the Barton Clay we find in the
north of the Isle of Wight, both in Alum and Whitecliff Bays, a
great series of various coloured sands and clays for the most part
unfossiliferous,</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 260">[ 260 ]</a></p>
<p>and probably of estuarine origin. As some of these beds contain
<i>Cardita planicosta</i> (Fig. 191) they have been identified with
the marine beds much richer in fossils seen in the coast section in
Bracklesham Bay near Chichester in Sussex, where the strata consist
chiefly of green clayey sands with some lignite. Among the
Bracklesham fossils besides the Cardita, the huge <i>Cerithium
giganteum</i> is seen, so conspicuous in the Calcaire Grossier of
Paris, where it is sometimes two feet in length. The <i>Nummulites
lævigata</i> (see Fig. 192), so characteristic of the lower
beds of the Calcaire Grossier in France, where it sometimes forms
stony layers, as near Compiègne, is very common in these
beds, together with <i>N. scabra</i> and <i>N. variolaria.</i> Out
of 193 species of testacea procured from the Bagshot and
Bracklesham beds in England, 126 occur in the Calcaire Grossier in
France. It was clearly, therefore, coeval with that part of the
Parisian series more nearly than with any other.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig191.jpg" width="318" height="401" alt=
"Fig. 191: Cardita (Venericardia) planicosta, Fig. 192: Nummulites (Nummularia) lavigata.">
</center>
<p>According to tables compiled from the best authorities by Mr.
Etheridge, the number of mollusca now known from the Bracklesham
beds in Great Britain is 393, of which no less</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 261">[ 261 ]</a></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig193.jpg" width="411" height="286" alt=
"Fig. 193: Palæophis typhoeus, Owen; an Eocene sea-serpent, Fig. 194: Defensive spine of Ostracion.">
</center>
<img src="../images1/fig195.jpg" width="195" height="177" alt=
"Fig. 195: Dental plates of Myliobates Edwardsi." align="right">
<p>than 240 are peculiar to this subdivision of the British Eocene
series, while 70 are common to the Older London Clay, and 140 to
the Newer Barton Clay. The volutes and cowries of this formation,
as well as the lunulites and corals, favour the idea of a warm
climate having prevailed, which is borne out by the discovery of a
serpent, <i>Palæophis typhœus</i> (see Fig. 193),
exceeding, according to Professor Owen, twenty feet in length, and
allied in its osteology to the Boa, Python, Coluber, and Hydrus.
The compressed form and diminutive size of certain caudal
vertebræ indicate so much analogy with Hydrus as to induce
Professor Owen to pronounce this extinct ophidian to have been
marine.* Among the companions of the sea-snake of Bracklesham was
an extinct crocodile (<i>Gavialis Dixoni,</i> Owen), and numerous
fish, such as now frequent the seas of warm latitudes, as the
Ostracion of the family Balistidæ, of which a dorsal spine is
figured (see Fig. 194), and gigantic rays of the genus <i>
Myliobates</i> (see Fig. 195).</p>
<p>The teeth of sharks also, of the genera <i>Carcharodon, Otodus,
Lamna, Galeocerdo,</i> and others, are abundant. (See Figs. 196,
197, 198, 199.)</p>
<p class="fnote">* Palæont. Soc. Monograph, Rept., pt. ii, p.
61.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 262">[ 262 ]</a></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig196.jpg" width="406" height="256" alt=
"Fig. 196: Carcharodon angustidens, Fig. 197: Otodus obliquus, Fig. 198: Lamna elegans, Fig. 199: Galcocerdo latidens.">
</center>
<br>
<br>
<center><small>MARINE SHELLS OF BRACKLESHAM BEDS.</small></center>
<p><b>Alum Bay and Bournemouth Beds.</b> (<i>Lower Bagshot of
English Survey</i>), <b>B.2,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—To that great series of sands and clays which
intervene between the equivalents of the Bracklesham Beds and the
London Clay or Lower Eocene, our Government Survey has given the
name of the Lower Bagshot sands, for they are supposed to agree in
age with the inferior unfossiliferous sands of the country round
Bagshot in the London Basin. This part of the series is finely
exposed in the vertical beds of Alum bay, in the Isle of Wight, and
east and west of Bournemouth, on the south coast of Hampshire. In
some of the close and white compact clays of this locality, there
are not only dicotyledonous leaves, but numerous fronds of ferns
allied to Gleichenia which are well preserved with their fruit.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig200.jpg" width="411" height="185" alt=
"Fig. 200: Pleurotoma attenuata, Fig. 201: Voluta Selseïensis, Fig. 202: Turritella multisulcata, Fig. 203: Lucina serrata, Fig. 204: Conus deperditus.">
</center>
None of the beds are of great horizontal extent, and there is much
cross-stratification in the sands, and in some places<br>
<br>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 263">[ 263 ]</a></p>
<p>black carbonaceous seams and lignite. In the midst of these
leaf-beds in Studland Bay, Purbeck shells of the genus Unio attest
the fresh-water origin of the white clay.</p>
<p>No less than forty species of plants are mentioned by MM. de la
Harpe and Gaudin from this formation in Hampshire, among which the
Proteaceæ (<i>Dryandra,</i> etc.) and the fig tribe are
abundant, as well as the cinnamon and several other laurineæ,
with some papilionaceous plants. On the whole, they remind the
botanist of the types of subtropical India and Australia.*</p>
<p>Heer has mentioned several species which are common to this Alum
Bay flora and that of Monte Bolca, near Verona, so celebrated for
its fossil fish, and where the strata contain nummulites and other
Middle Eocene fossils. He has particularly alluded to <i>Aralia
primigenia</i> (of which genus a fruit has since been found by Mr.
Mitchell at Bournemouth), <i>Daphnogene Veronensis,</i> and <i>
Ficus granadilla,</i> as among the species common to and
characteristic of the Isle of Wight and Italian Eocene beds; and he
observes that in the flora of this period these forms of a
temperate climate which constitute a marked feature in the European
Miocene formations, such as the willow, poplar, birch, alder, elm,
hornbeam, oak, fir, and pine, are wanting. The American types are
also absent, or much more feebly represented than in the Miocene
period, although fine specimens of the fan-palm (<i>Sabal</i>) have
been found in these Eocene clays at Studland. The number of exotic
forms which are common to the Eocene and Miocene strata of Europe,
like those to be alluded to in the sequel which are common to the
Eocene and Cretaceous fauna, demonstrate the remoteness of the
times in which the geographical distribution of living plants
originated. A great majority of the Eocene genera have disappeared
from our temperate climates, but not the whole of them; and they
must all have exerted some influence on the assemblages of species
which succeeded them. Many of these last occurring in the Upper
Miocene are indeed so closely allied to the flora now surviving as
to make it questionable, even in the opinion of naturalists opposed
to the doctrine of transmutation, whether they are not
genealogically related the one to the other.</p>
<br>
<center><small>LOWER EOCENE FORMATIONS, ENGLAND.</small></center>
<p>London Clay, C.1, <a href="#page 252">Table</a>—This
formation underlies the preceding, and sometimes attains a
thickness of 500 feet. It consists of tenacious brown and
bluish-grey clay,</p>
<p class="fnote">* Heer, Climat et Végétation du Pays
Tertiaire, p. 172.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 264">[ 264 ]</a></p>
<p>with layers of concretions called septaria, which abound chiefly
in the brown clay, and are obtained in sufficient numbers from
sea-cliffs near Harwich, and from shoals off the coast of Essex and
the Isle of Sheppey, to be used for making Roman cement. The total
number of British fossil mollusca known at present (January, 1870)
in this formation are 254, of which 166 are peculiar, or not found
in other Eocene beds in this country. The principal localities of
fossils in the London clay are Highgate Hill, near London, the
Island of Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames, and Bognor on the
Sussex coast. Out of 133 fossil shells, Mr. Prestwich found only 20
to be common to the Calcaire Grossier (from which 600 species have
been obtained), while 33 are common to the “Lits
Coquilliers” (<a href="#page 275">p. 275</a>), in which 200
species are known in France.</p>
<p>In the Island of Sheppey near the mouth of the Thames, the
thickness of the London Clay is estimated by Mr. Prestwich to be
more than 500 feet, and it is in the uppermost 50 feet that a great
number of fossil fruits were obtained, being chiefly found on the
beach when the sea has washed away the clay of the rapidly wasting
cliffs.</p>
<img src="../images1/fig205.jpg" width="168" height="219" alt=
"Fig. 205: Nipadites ellipticus." align="left">
<p>Mr. Bowerbank, in a valuable publication on these fossil fruits
and seeds, has described no less than thirteen fruits of palms of
the recent type <i>Nipa,</i> now only found in the Molucca and
Philippine Islands, and in Bengal (see Fig. 205). In the delta of
the Ganges, Dr. Hooker observed the large nuts of <i>Nipa
fruticans</i> floating in such numbers in the various arms of that
great river, as to obstruct the paddle-wheels of steamboats. These
plants are allied to the cocoanut tribe on the one side, and on the
other to the <i>Pandanus,</i> or screw-pine. There are also met
with three species of <i>Anona,</i> or custard-apple; and
cucurbitaceous fruits (of the gourd and melon family), and fruits
of various species of <i>Acacia.</i></p>
<p>Besides fir-cones or fruit of true Coniferæ there are
cones of Proteaceæ in abundance, and the celebrated botanist
the late Robert Brown pointed out the affinity of these to the New
Holland types <i>Petrophila</i> and <i>Isopogon.</i> Of the first
there are about fifty, and of the second thirty described species
now living in Australia.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 265">[ 265 ]</a></p>
<img src="../images1/fig206.jpg" width="182" height="228" alt=
"Fig. 206: Eocene Proteaceous Fruit (Petrophiloides Richardsoni."
align="right">
<p>Ettingshausen remarked in 1851 that five of the fossil species
from Sheppey, named by Bowerbank* were specimens of the same fruit
(see Fig. 206), in different states of preservation; and Mr.
Carruthers, having examined the original specimens now in the
British Museum, tells me that all these cones from Sheppey may be
reduced to two species, which have an undoubted affinity to the two
existing Australian genera above mentioned, although their perfect
identity in structure can not be made out.</p>
<p>The contiguity of land may be inferred not only from these
vegetable productions, but also from the teeth and bones of
crocodiles and turtles, since these creatures, as Dean Conybeare
remarked, must have resorted to some shore to lay their eggs. Of
turtles there were numerous species referred to extinct genera.
These are, for the most part, not equal in size to the largest
living tropical turtles. A sea-snake, which must have been thirteen
feet long, of the genus <i>Palæophis</i> before mentioned (p.
261) has also been described by Professor Owen from Sheppey, of a
different species from that of Bracklesham, and called <i>P.
toliapicus.</i> A true crocodile, also, <i>Crocodilus
toliapicus,</i> and another saurian more nearly allied to the
gavial, accompany the above fossils; also the relics of several
birds and quadrupeds. One of these last belongs to the new genus
<i>Hyracotherium</i> of Owen, of the hog tribe, allied to
Chæropotamus, another is a <i>Lophiodon</i>; a third a
pachyderm called <i>Coryphodon eocænus</i> by Owen, larger
than any existing tapir. All these animals seem to have inhabited
the banks of the great river which floated down the Sheppey fruits.
They imply the existence of a mammiferous fauna antecedent to the
period when nummulites flourished in Europe and Asia, and therefore
before the Alps, Pyrenees, and other mountain-chains now forming
the backbones of great continents, were raised from the deep; nay,
even before a part of the constituent rocky masses now entering
into the central ridges of these chains had been deposited in the
sea.</p>
<p>The marine shells of the London Clay confirm the inference
derivable from the plants and reptiles in favour of a high
temperature. Thus many species of <i>Conus</i> and <i>
Voluta</i></p>
<p class="fnote">* Bowerbank, Fossil Fruits and Seeds of London
Clay, Plates ix and x.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 266">[ 266 ]</a></p>
<p>occur, a large <i>Cypræa, C. oviformis,</i> a very large
<i>Rostellaria</i> (Fig. 209), a species of <i>Cancellaria,</i> six
species of <i>Nautilus</i> (Fig. 211), besides other Cephalopoda of
extinct genera, one of the most remarkable of which is the <i>
Belosepia</i> (Fig. 212).</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig207.jpg" width="419" height="632" alt=
"Fig. 207: Voluta nodosa, Fig. 208: Phorus extensus, Fig. 209: Rostellaria (Hippocrenes) ampla, Fig. 210: Nautilus centralis, Fig. 211: Aturia ziczac, Fig. 212: Belosepia sepioidea, Fig. 213: Leda amygdaloides, Fig. 214: Cyptodon (Axinus) angulatum, Fig. 215: Astropecten crispatus.">
</center>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 267">[ 267 ]</a></p>
<p>Among many characteristic bivalve shells are <i>Leda
amygdaloides</i> (Fig. 213) and <i>Cryptodon angulatum</i> (Fig.
214), and among the Radiata a star-fish, <i>Astropecten</i> (Fig.
215.)</p>
<p>These fossils are accompanied by a sword-fish (<i>Tetrapterus
priscus,</i> Agassiz), about eight feet long, and a saw-fish
(<i>Pristis bisulcatus,</i> Agassiz), about ten feet in length;
genera now foreign to the British seas. On the whole, about eighty
species of fish have been described by M. Agassiz from these beds
of Sheppey, and they indicate, in his opinion, a warm climate.</p>
<p>In the lower part of the London clay at Kyson, a few miles east
of Woodbridge, the remains of mammalia have been detected. Some of
these have been referred by Professor Owen to an opossum, and
others to the genus <i>Hyracotherium.</i> The teeth of this
last-mentioned pachyderm were at first, in 1840, supposed to belong
to a monkey, an opinion afterwards abandoned by Owen when more
ample materials for comparison were obtained.</p>
<p><b>Woolwich and Reading Series, C.2,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—This formation was formerly called the Plastic
Clay, as it agrees with a similar clay used in pottery which
occupies the same position in the French series, and it has been
used for the like purposes in England.*</p>
<p>No formations can be more dissimilar, on the whole, in mineral
character than the Eocene deposits of England and Paris; those of
our own island being almost exclusively of mechanical
origin—accumulations of mud, sand, and pebbles; while in the
neighbourhood of Paris we find a great succession of strata
composed of limestones, some of them siliceous, and of crystalline
gypsum and siliceous sandstone, and sometimes of pure flint used
for millstones. Hence it is often impossible, as before stated, to
institute an exact comparison between the various members of the
English and French series, and to settle their respective ages. But
in regard to the division which we have now under consideration,
whether we study it in the basins of London, Hampshire, or Paris,
we recognise as a general rule the same mineral character, the beds
consisting over a large area of mottled clays and sand, with
lignite, and with some strata of well-rolled flint pebbles, derived
from the chalk, varying in size, but occasionally several inches in
diameter. These strata may be seen in the Isle of Wight in contact
with the chalk, or in the London basin, at Reading, Blackheath, and
Woolwich. In some of the lowest of them, banks of oysters are
observed, consisting of <i>Ostrea bellovacina,</i> so common in
France in the</p>
<p class="fnote">* Prestwich, Quart. Geol. Journ., vol. x.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 268">[ 268 ]</a></p>
<p>same relative position. In these beds at Bromley, Dr. Buckland
found a large pebble to which five full-grown oysters were affixed,
in such a manner as to show that they had commenced their first
growth upon it, and remained attached to it through life.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig216.jpg" width="382" height="238" alt=
"Fig. 216: Cyrena cuneiformis, Fig. 217: Melania (Melanatria) inquinata.">
</center>
<p>In several places, as at Woolwich on the Thames, at Newhaven in
Sussex, and elsewhere, a mixture of marine and fresh-water testacea
distinguishes this member of the series. Among the latter, <i>
Cyrena cuneiformis</i> (see Fig. 216) and <i>Melania inquinata</i>
(see Fig. 217) are very common, as in beds of corresponding age in
France. They clearly indicate points where rivers entered the
Eocene sea. Usually there is a mixture of brackish, fresh-water,
and marine shells, and sometimes, as at Woolwich, proofs of the
river and the sea having successively prevailed on the same spot.
At New Charlton, in the suburbs of Woolwich, Mr. de la Condamine
discovered in 1849, and pointed out to me, a layer of sand
associated with well-rounded flint pebbles in which numerous
individuals of the <i>Cyrena tellinella</i> were seen standing
endwise with both their valves united, the siphonal extremity of
each shell being uppermost, as would happen if the mollusks had
died in their natural position. I have described a bank of
sandy mud, in the delta of the Alabama River at Mobile, on the
borders of the Gulf of Mexico, where in 1846 I dug out at low tide
specimens of living species of <i>Cyrena</i> and of a <i>
Gnathodon,</i> which were similarly placed with their shells erect,
or in a posture which enables the animal to protrude its siphon
upward, and draw in or reject water at pleasure. The water at
Mobile is usually fresh,</p>
<p class="fnote">* Second Visit to the United States, vol. ii, p.
104.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 269">[ 269 ]</a></p>
<p>but sometimes brackish. At Woolwich a body of river-water must
have flowed permanently into the sea where the <i>Cyrenæ</i>
lived, and they may have been killed suddenly by an influx of pure
salt-water, which invaded the spot when the river was low, or when
a subsidence of land took place. Traced in one direction, or
eastward towards Herne Bay, the Woolwich beds assume more and more
of a marine character; while in an opposite, or south-western
direction, they become, as near Chelsea and other places, more
fresh-water, and contain <i>Unio, Paludina,</i> and layers of
lignite, so that the land drained by the ancient river seems
clearly to have been to the south-west of the present site of the
metropolis.</p>
<p><i>Fluviatile Beds underlying Deep-sea Strata.</i>—Before
the minds of geologists had become familiar with the theory of the
gradual sinking of land, and its conversion into sea at different
periods, and the consequent change from shallow to deep water, the
fluviatile and littoral character of this inferior group appeared
strange and anomalous. After passing through hundreds of feet of
London clay, proved by its fossils to have been deposited in deep
salt-water, we arrive at beds of fluviatile origin, and associated
with them masses of shingle, attaining at Blackheath, near London,
a thickness of 50 feet. These shingle banks are probably of marine
origin, but they indicate the proximity of land, and the existence
of a shore where the flints of the chalk were rolled into sand and
pebbles, and spread over a wide space. We have, therefore, first,
as before stated (p. 268), evidence of oscillations of level during
the accumulation of the Woolwich series, then of a great
submergence, which allowed a marine deposit 500 thick to be laid
over the antecedent beds of fresh and brackish water origin.</p>
<p><b>Thanet Sands, C.3,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—The Woolwich or plastic clay above described may
often be seen in the Hampshire basin in actual contact with the
chalk, constituting in such places the lowest member of the British
Eocene series. But at other points another formation of marine
origin, characterised by a somewhat different assemblage of organic
remains, has been shown by Mr. Prestwich to intervene between the
chalk and the Woolwich series. For these beds he has proposed the
name of “Thanet Sands,” because they are well seen in
the Isle of Thanet, in the northern part of Kent, and on the
sea-coast between Herne Bay and the Reculvers, where they consist
of sands with a few concretionary masses of sandstone, and contain,
among other fossils, <i>Pholadomya cuneata, Cyprina morrisii,
Corbula longirostris, Scalaria Bowerbankii,</i> etc. The greatest
thickness of these beds is 90 feet.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 270">[ 270 ]</a></p>
<center><small>UPPER EOCENE FORMATIONS OF FRANCE.</small></center>
<p>The tertiary formations in the neighbourhood of Paris consist of
a series of marine and fresh-water strata, alternating with each
other, and filling up a depression in the chalk. The area which
they occupy has been called the Paris Basin, and is about 180 miles
in its greatest length from north to south, and about 90 miles in
breadth from east to west. MM. Cuvier and Brongniart attempted, in
1810, to distinguish five different groups, comprising three
fresh-water and two marine, which were supposed to imply that the
waters of the ocean, and of rivers and lakes, had been by turns
admitted into and excluded from the same area. Investigations since
made in the Hampshire and London basins have rather tended to
confirm these views, at least so far as to show that since the
commencement of the Eocene period there have been great movements
of the bed of the sea, and of the adjoining lands, and that the
superposition of deep-sea to shallow-water deposits (the London
Clay, for example, to the Woolwich beds) can only be explained by
referring to such movements. It appears, notwithstanding, from the
researches of M. Constant Prevost, that some of the minor
alternations and intermixtures of fresh-water and marine deposits,
in the Paris basin, may be accounted for without such changes of
level, by imagining both to have been simultaneously in progress,
in the same bay of the same sea, or a gulf into which many rivers
entered.</p>
<p><b>Gypseous Series of Montmartre, A.1,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—To enlarge on the numerous subdivisions of the
Parisian strata would lead me beyond my present limits; I shall
therefore give some examples only of the most important formations.
Beneath the Grès de Fontainebleau, belonging to the Lower
Miocene period, as before stated, we find, in the neighbourhood of
Paris, a series of white and green marls, with subordinate beds of
gypsum. These are most largely developed in the central parts of
the Paris basin, and, among other places, in the hill of
Montmartre, where its fossils were first studied by Cuvier.</p>
<p>The gypsum quarried there for the manufacture of plaster of
Paris occurs as a granular crystalline rock, and, together with the
associated marls, contains land and fluviatile shells, together
with the bones and skeletons of birds and quadrupeds. Several
land-plants are also met with, among which are fine specimens of
the fan-palm or palmetto tribe (<i>Flabellaria</i>). The remains
also of fresh-water fish, and of crocodiles and other reptiles,
occur in the gypsum. The skeletons of</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 271">[ 271 ]</a></p>
<p>mammalia are usually isolated, often entire, the most delicate
extremities being preserved; as if the carcasses, clothed with
their flesh and skin, had been floated down soon after death, and
while they were still swollen by the gases generated by their first
decomposition. The few accompanying shells are of those light kinds
which frequently float on the surface of rivers, together with
wood.</p>
<p>In this formation the relics of about fifty species of
quadrupeds, including the genera <i>Palæotherium</i> (see <a
href="../images1/fig174.jpg">Fig. 174</a>), <i>Anoplotherium</i> (see
Fig. 218), and others, have been found, all extinct, and nearly
four-fifths of them belonging to the Perissodactyle or odd-toed
division of the order <i>Pachydermata,</i> which now contains only
four living genera, namely, rhinoceros, tapir, horse, and hyrax.
With them a few carnivorous animals are associated, among which are
the <i>Hyænodon dasyuroides,</i> a species of dog, <i>Canis
Parisiensis,</i> and a weasel, <i>Cynodon Parisiensis.</i> Of the
<i>Rodentia</i> are found a squirrel; of the <i>Cheiroptera,</i> a
bat; while the <i>Marsupalia</i> (an order now confined to America,
Australia, and some contiguous islands) are represented by an
opossum.</p>
<p>Of birds, about ten species have been ascertained, the skeletons
of some of which are entire. None of them are referable to existing
species.* The same remark, according to MM. Cuvier and Agassiz,
applies both to the reptiles and fish. Among the last are
crocodiles and tortoises of the genera <i>Emys</i> and <i>
Trionyx.</i></p>
<p><img src="../images1/fig218.jpg" width="256" height="237" alt=
"Fig. 218: Xiphodon gracile, or Anoplotherium gracile." align=
"right"></p>
<p>The tribe of land quadrupeds most abundant in this formation is
such as now inhabits alluvial plains and marshes, and the banks of
rivers and lakes, a class most exposed to suffer by river
inundations. Among these were several species of <i>
Palæotherium,</i> a genus before alluded to. These were
associated with the Anoplotherium, a tribe intermediate between
pachyderms and ruminants. One of the three divisions of this family
was called by Cuvier <i>Xiphodon.</i> Their forms were slender
and</p>
<p class="fnote">* Cuvier, Oss. Foss., tome iii, p. 255.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 272">[ 272 ]</a></p>
<p>elegant, and one, named <i>Xiphodon gracile</i> (Fig. 218), was
about the size of the chamois; and Cuvier inferred from the
skeleton that it was as light, graceful, and agile as the
gazelle.</p>
<p><i>Fossil Footprints.</i>—There are three superimposed
masses of gypsum in the neighbourhood of Paris, separated by
intervening deposits of laminated marl. In the uppermost of the
three, in the valley of Montmorency, M. Desnoyers discovered in
1859 many footprints of animals occurring at no less than six
different levels.* The gypsum to which they belong varies from
thirty to fifty feet in thickness, and is that which has yielded to
the naturalist the largest number of bones and skeletons of
mammalia, birds, and reptiles. I visited the quarries, soon after
the discovery was made known, with M. Desnoyers, who also showed me
large slabs in the Museum at Paris, where, on the upper planes of
stratification, the indented foot-marks were seen, while
corresponding casts in relief appeared on the lower surfaces of the
strata of gypsum which were immediately superimposed. A thin film
of marl, which before it was dried and condensed by pressure must
have represented a much thicker layer of soft mud, intervened
between the beds of solid gypsum. On this mud the animals had
trodden, and made impressions which had penetrated to the gypseous
mass below, then evidently unconsolidated. Tracks of the <i>
Anoplotherium</i> with its bisulcate hoof, and the trilobed
footprints of <i>Palæotherium,</i> were seen of different
sizes, corresponding to those of several species of these genera
which Cuvier had reconstructed, while in the same beds were
foot-marks of carnivorous mammalia. The tracks also of fluviatile,
lacustrine, and terrestrial tortoises (<i>Emys, Trionyx,</i> etc.)
were discovered, also those of crocodiles, iguanas, geckos, and
great batrachians, and the footprints of a huge bird, apparently a
wader, of the size of the gastornis, to be mentioned in the sequel.
There were likewise the impressions of the feet of other creatures,
some of them clearly distinguishable from any of the fifty extinct
types of mammalia of which the bones have been found in the Paris
gypsum. The whole assemblage, says Desnoyers, indicate the shores
of a lake, or several small lakes communicating with each other, on
the borders of which many species of pachyderms wandered, and
beasts of prey which occasionally devoured them. The tooth-marks of
these last had been detected by palæontologists long before
on the bones and skulls of Paleotheres entombed in the gypsum.</p>
<p class="fnote">* Sur des Empreintes de Pas d’Animaux par M.
J. Desnoyers. Compte rendu de l’Institut, 1859.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 273">[ 273 ]</a></p>
<p><i>Imperfection of the Record.</i>—These foot-marks have
revealed to us new and unexpected proofs that the air-breathing
fauna of the Upper Eocene period in Europe far surpassed in the
number and variety of its species the largest estimate which had
previously been formed of it. We may now feel sure that the
mammalia, reptiles, and birds which have left portions of their
skeletons as memorials of their existence in the solid gypsum
constituted but a part of the then living creation. Similar
inferences may be drawn from the study of the whole succession of
geological records. In each district the monuments of periods
embracing thousands, and probably in some instances hundreds of
thousands of years, are totally wanting. Even in the volumes which
are extant the greater number of the pages are missing in any given
region, and where they are found they contain but few and casual
entries of the physical events or living beings of the times to
which they relate. It may also be remarked that the subordinate
formations met with in two neighbouring countries, such as France
and England (the minor Tertiary groups above enumerated), commonly
classed as equivalents and referred to corresponding periods, may
nevertheless have been by no means strictly coincident in date.
Though called contemporaneous, it is probable that they were often
separated by intervals of many thousands of years. We may compare
them to double stars, which appear single to the naked eye because
seen from a vast distance in space, and which really belong to one
and the same stellar system, though occupying places in space
extremely remote if estimated by our ordinary standard of
terrestrial measurements.</p>
<p><b>Calcaire silicieux, or Travertin inférieur, A.2 and
3,</b> <a href="#page 252">Table</a>—This compact siliceous
limestone extends over a wide area. It resembles a precipitate from
the waters of mineral springs, and is often traversed by small
empty sinuous cavities. It is, for the most part, devoid of organic
remains, but in some places contains fresh-water and land species,
and never any marine fossils. The calcaire siliceux and the
calcaire grossier usually occupy distinct parts of the Paris basin,
the one attaining its fullest development in those places where the
other is of slight thickness. They are described by some writers as
alternating with each other towards the centre of the basin, as at
Sergy and Osny.</p>
<p>The gypsum, with its associated marls before described, is in
greatest force towards the centre of the basin, where the calcaire
grossier and calcaire silicieux are less fully developed.</p>
<p><b>Grès de Beauchamp, or Sables Moyens, A.4,</b> <a href=
"#page 252">Table</a>—In some parts of the Paris basin, sands
and marls, called the</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 274">[ 274 ]</a></p>
<p>Grès de Beauchamp, or Sables moyens, divide the gypseous
beds from the calcaire grossier proper. These sands, in which a
small nummulite (N. variolaria) is very abundant, contain more than
300 species of marine shells, many of them peculiar, but others
common to the next division.</p>
<br>
<center><small>MIDDLE EOCENE FORMATIONS OF FRANCE.</small></center>
<p><b>Calcaire Grossier, upper and middle, B.1,</b> <a href=
"#page 252">Table</a>—The upper division of this group
consists in great part of beds of compact, fragile limestone, with
some intercalated green marls. The shells in some parts are a
mixture of <i>Cerithium, Cyclostoma,</i> and <i>Corbula</i>; in
others <i>Limnea, Cerithium, Paludina,</i> etc. In the latter, the
bones of reptiles and mammalia, <i>Palæotherium</i> and <i>
Lophiodon,</i> have been found. The middle division, or calcaire
grossier proper, consists of a coarse limestone, often passing into
sand. It contains the greater number of the fossil shells which
characterise the Paris basin. No less than 400 distinct species
have been procured from a single spot near Grignon, where they are
imbedded in a calcareous sand, chiefly formed of comminuted shells,
in which, nevertheless, individuals in a perfect state of
preservation, both of marine, terrestrial, and fresh-water species,
are mingled together. Some of the marine shells may have lived on
the spot; but the <i>Cyclostoma</i> and <i>Limnea,</i> being land
and fresh-water shells, must have been brought thither by rivers
and currents, and the quantity of triturated shells implies
considerable movement in the waters.</p>
<p>Nothing is more striking in this assemblage of fossil testacea
than the great proportion of species referable to the genus <i>
Cerithium</i> (see <a href="../images1/fig158.jpg">p. 245</a>). There
occur no less than 137 species of this genus in the Paris basin,
and almost all of them in the calcaire grossier. Most of the living
<i>Cerithia</i> inhabit the sea near the mouths of rivers, where
the waters are brackish; so that their abundance in the marine
strata now under consideration is in harmony with the hypothesis
that the Paris basin formed a gulf into which several rivers
flowed.</p>
<p>In some parts of the calcaire grossier round Paris, certain beds
occur of a stone used in building, and called by the French
geologists “Miliolite limestone.” It is almost entirely
made up of millions of microscopic shells, of the size of minute
grains of sand, which all belong to the class Foraminifera.
Examples of some of these are given in Figs. 219 to 221. As this
miliolitic stone never occurs in the Faluns, or Upper Miocene
strata of Brittany and Touraine, it often furnishes the geologist
with a useful criterion for</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 275">[ 275 ]</a></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig219.jpg" width="323" height="197" alt=
"Fig. 219: Calcarina rarispina, Fig. 220: Spirolina stenostoma, Fig. 221: Triloculina inflata.">
</center>
<p>distinguishing the detached Eocene and Upper Miocene formations
scattered over those and other adjoining provinces. The discovery
of the remains of Palæotherium and other mammalia in some of
the upper beds of the calcaire grossier shows that these land
animals began to exist before the deposition of the overlying
gypseous series had commenced.</p>
<p><b>Lower Calcaire grossier, or Glauconie grossiere, B.1,</b> <a
href="page 252">Table</a>—The lower part of the calcaire
grossier, which often contains much green earth, is characterised
at Auvers, near Pontoise, to the north of Paris, and still more in
the environs of Compiègne, by the abundance of nummulites,
consisting chiefly of <i>N. lævigata, N. scabra,</i> and <i>
N. Lamarcki,</i> which constitute a large proportion of some of the
stony strata, though these same foraminifera are wanting in beds of
similar age in the immediate environs of Paris.</p>
<img src="../images1/fig222.jpg" width="179" height="100" alt=
"Fig. 222: Nerita conoidea." align="right">
<p><b>Soissonnais sands, or Lits coquilliers, B.2,</b> <a href=
"#page 252">Table</a>—Below the preceding formation, shelly
sands are seen, of considerable thickness, especially at
Cuisse-Lamotte, near Compiègne, and other localities in the
Soissonnais, about fifty miles N.E. of Paris, from which about 300
species of shells have been obtained, many of them common to the
calcaire grossier and the Bracklesham beds of England, and many
peculiar. The <i>Nummulites planulata</i> is very abundant, and the
most characteristic shell is the <i>Nerita conoidea,</i> Lam., a
fossil which has a very wide geographical range; for, as M.
d’Archiac remarks, it accompanies the nummulitic formation
from Europe to India, having been found in Cutch, near the mouths
of the Indus, associated with <i>Nummulites scabra.</i> No less
than 33 shells of this group are said to be identical with shells
of the London clay proper, yet, after visiting Cuisse-Lamotte
and</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 276">[ 276 ]</a></p>
<p>other localities of the “Sables inférieurs”
of Archiac, I agree with Mr. Prestwich, that the latter are
probably newer than the London clay, and perhaps older than the
Bracklesham beds of England. The London clay seems to be
unrepresented in the Paris basin, unless partially so, by these
sands.*</p>
<br>
<center><small>LOWER EOCENE FORMATIONS OF FRANCE.</small></center>
<p><b>Argile Plastique, C.2,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—At the base of the tertiary system in France are
extensive deposits of sands, with occasional beds of clay used for
pottery, and called “argile plastique.” Fossil oysters
(<i>Ostrea bellovacina</i>) abound in some places, and in others
there is a mixture of fluviatile shells, such as <i>Cyrena
cuneiformis</i> (<a href="../images1/fig216.jpg">Fig. 216</a>), <i>
Melania inquinata</i> (<a href="../images1/fig216.jpg">Fig. 216</a>),
and others, frequently met with in beds occupying the same position
in the London Basin. Layers of lignite also accompany the inferior
clays and sands.</p>
<p>Immediately upon the chalk at the bottom of all the tertiary
strata in France there generally is a conglomerate or breccia of
rolled and angular chalk-flints, cemented by siliceous sand. These
beds appear to be of littoral origin, and imply the previous
emergence of the chalk, and its waste by denudation. In the year
1855, the tibia and femur of a large bird equalling at least the
ostrich in size were found at Meudon, near Paris, at the base of
the Plastic clay. This bird, to which the name of <i>Gastornis
Parisiensis</i> has been assigned, appears, from the Memoirs of MM.
Hébert, Lartet, and Owen, to belong to an extinct genus.
Professor Owen refers it to the class of wading land birds rather
than to an aquatic species.†</p>
<p>That a formation so much explored for economical purposes as the
Argile plastique around Paris, and the clays and sands of
corresponding age near London, should never have afforded any
vestige of a feathered biped previously to the year 1855, shows
what diligent search and what skill in osteological interpretation
are required before the existence of birds of remote ages can be
established.</p>
<p><b>Sables de Bracheux, C.3,</b> <a href="#page 252">
Table</a>—The marine sands called the Sables de Bracheux (a
place near Beauvais), are considered by M. Hébert to be
older than the Lignites and Plastic clay, and to coincide in age
with the Thanet Sands of England. At La Fère, in the
Department of Aisne, in a deposit of this age, a fossil skull has
been found of a quadruped called by Blainville <i>Arctocyon
primævus,</i> and</p>
<p class="fnote">* D’Archiac, Bulletin, tome x; and
Prestwich, Quart. Geol. Journ., 1847, p. 377.<br>
† Quart. Geol. Journ., vol. xii, p. 204, 1856.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 277">[ 277 ]</a></p>
<p>supposed by him to be related both to the bear and to the
Kinkajou (<i>Cercoleptes</i>). This creature appears to be the
oldest known tertiary mammifer.</p>
<p><b>Nummulitic Formations of Europe, Asia, etc.</b>—Of all
the rocks of the Eocene period, no formations are of such great
geographical importance as the Upper and Middle Eocene, as above
defined, assuming that the older tertiary formation, commonly
called nummulitic, is correctly ascribed to this group. It appears
that of more than fifty species of these foraminifera described by
D’Archiac, one or two species only are found in other
tertiary formations whether of older or newer date. <i>Nummulites
intermedia,</i> a Middle Eocene form, ascends into the Lower
Miocene, but it seems doubtful whether any species descends to the
level of the London clay, still less to the Argile plastique or
Woolwich beds. Separate groups of strata are often characterised by
distinct species of nummulite; thus the beds between the lower
Miocene and the lower Eocene may be divided into three sections,
distinguished by three different species of nummulites, <i>N.
variolaria</i> in the upper, <i>N. lævigata</i> in the
middle, and <i>N. planulata</i> in the lower beds. The nummulitic
limestone of the Swiss Alps rises to more than 10,000 feet above
the level of the sea, and attains here and in other mountain chains
a thickness of several thousand feet. It may be said to play a far
more conspicuous part than any other tertiary group in the solid
framework of the earth’s crust, whether in Europe, Asia, or
Africa. It occurs in Algeria and Morocco, and has been traced from
Egypt, where it was largely quarried of old for the building of the
Pyramids, into Asia Minor, and across Persia by Bagdad to the
mouths of the Indus. It has been observed not only in Cutch, but in
the mountain ranges which separate Scinde from Persia, and which
form the passes leading to Caboul; and it has been followed still
farther eastward into India, as far as eastern Bengal and the
frontiers of China.</p>
<p>Dr. T. Thompson found nummulites at an elevation of no less than
16,500 feet above the level of the sea, in Western Thibet. One of
the species, which I myself found very abundant on the flanks of
the Pyrenees, in a compact crystalline marble (<a href=
"../images1/fig223.jpg">Fig. 223</a>) is called by M. d’Archiac
<i>Nummulites Puschi.</i> The same is also very common in rocks of
the same age in the Carpathians. In many distant countries, in
Cutch, for example, some of the same shells, such as <i>Nerita
conoidea</i> (<a href="../images1/fig222.jpg">Fig. 222</a>), accompany
the nummulites, as in France. The opinion of many observers, that
the Nummulitic formation belongs partly to the cretaceous era,
seems chiefly to</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 278">[ 278 ]</a></p>
<p>have arisen from confounding an allied genus, Orbitoides, with
the true Nummulite.</p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig223.jpg" width="326" height="202" alt=
"Fig. 223: Nummulites Puschi."></center>
<p>When we have once arrived at the conviction that the nummulitic
formation occupies a middle and upper place in the Eocene series,
we are struck with the comparatively modern date to which some of
the greatest revolutions in the physical geography of Europe, Asia,
and Northern Africa must be referred. All the mountain-chains, such
as the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, and Himalayas, into the
composition of whose central and loftiest parts the nummulitic
strata enter bodily, could have had no existence till after the
Middle Eocene period. During that period the sea prevailed where
these chains now rise, for nummulites and their accompanying
testacea were unquestionably inhabitants of salt water. Before
these events, comprising the conversion of a wide area from a sea
to a continent, England had been peopled, as I before pointed out
(p. 267), by various quadrupeds, by herbivorous pachyderms, by
insectivorous bats, and by opossums.</p>
<p>Almost all the volcanoes which preserve any remains of their
original form, or from the craters of which lava streams can be
traced, are more modern than the Eocene fauna now under
consideration; and besides these superficial monuments of the
action of heat, Plutonic influences have worked vast changes in the
texture of rocks within the same period. Some members of the
nummulitic and overlying tertiary strata called <i>flysch</i> have
actually been converted in the central Alps into crystalline rocks,
and transformed into marble, quartz-rock, micha-schist, and
gneiss.*</p>
<p><b>Eocene Strata in the United States.</b>—In North
America the Eocene formations occupy a large area bordering the</p>
<p class="fnote">* Murchison, Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc., vol. v,
and Lyell, vol. vi, 1850. Anniversary Address.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 279">[ 279 ]</a></p>
<p>Atlantic, which increases in breadth and importance as it is
traced southward from Delaware and Maryland to Georgia and Alabama.
They also occur in Louisiana and other States both east and west of
the valley of the Mississippi. At Claiborne, in Alabama, no less
than 400 species of marine shells, with many echinoderms and teeth
of fish, characterise one member of this system. Among the shells,
the <i>Cardita planicosta,</i> before mentioned (<a href=
"../images1/fig191.jpg">Fig. 191</a>), is in abundance; and this
fossil and some others identical with European species, or very
nearly allied to them, make it highly probable that the Claiborne
beds agree in age with the central or Bracklesham group of England,
and with the calcaire grossiere of Paris.*</p>
<p>Higher in the series is a remarkable calcareous rock, formerly
called “the nummulite limestone,” from the great number
of discoid bodies resembling nummulites which it contains, fossils
now referred by A. d’Orbigny to the genus <i>Orbitoides,</i>
which has been demonstrated by Dr. Carpenter to belong to the
foraminifera.† That naturalist, moreover, is of opinion that
the Orbitoides alluded to (<i>O. Mantelli</i>) is of the same
species as one found in Cutch, in the Middle Eocene or nummulitic
formation of India.</p>
<p>Above the orbitoidal limestone is a white limestone, sometimes
soft and argillaceous, but in parts very compact and calcareous. It
contains several peculiar corals, and a large Nautilus allied to
<i>N. ziczac</i>; also in its upper bed a gigantic cetacean, called
<i>Zeuglodon</i> by Owen.‡</p>
<p>The colossal bones of this cetacean are so plentiful in the
interior of Clarke County, Alabama, as to be characteristic of the
formation. The vertebral column of one skeleton found by Dr.
Buckley at a spot visited by me, extended to the length of nearly
seventy feet, and not far off part of another backbone nearly fifty
feet long was dug up. I obtained evidence, during a short
excursion, of so many localities of this fossil animal within a
distance of ten miles, as to lead me to conclude that they must
have belonged to at least forty distinct individuals.</p>
<p>Professor Owen first pointed out that this huge animal was not
reptilian, since each tooth was furnished with double roots (<a
href="../images1/fig224.jpg">Fig. 224</a>), implanted in corresponding
double sockets; and his opinion of the cetacean nature of the
fossil was afterwards</p>
<p class="fnote">* See paper by the Author, Quart. Journ. of Geol.
Soc., vol. iv, p. 12; and Second Visit to the United States, vol.
ii, p. 59.<br>
† Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc., vol. vi, p. 32.<br>
‡ See Memoir by R. W. Gibbes, Journ. of Acad. Nat. Sci.
Philad., vol. i, 1847.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr>
<p class="page"><a name="page 280">[ 280 ]</a></p>
<center><img src="../images1/fig224.jpg" width="411" height="227" alt=
"Fig. 224: Zeuglodon cetoides, Fig 225: Basilosaurus."></center>
<p>confirmed by Dr. Wyman and Dr. R. W. Gibbes. That it was an
extinct mammal of the whale tribe has since been placed beyond all
doubt by discovery of the entire skull of another fossil species of
the same family, having the double occipital condyles only met with
in mammals, and the convoluted tympanic bones which are
characteristic of cetaceans.</p>
<br>
<hr>
<small><a href="contents.html">Contents</a> / <a href="ch15.html">
Chapter XV</a> / <a href="ch17.html">Chapter XVII</a></small>
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