Bones of Mammalia on a Deposit at Folkestone Containing

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Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society

On a Deposit at Folkestone containing Bones of Mammalia

Samuel J. Mackie

Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 1851, v.7; p257-262. doi: 10.1144/GSL.JGS.1851.007.01-02.44

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Notes

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

PROCEEDINGS

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

MAY 14, 1851.

Samuel J. Mackie, Esq., was elected a Fellow. The following communications were read :-- I. On the DISTRIBUTION of the FLINT DaI~ of the SOUTH-EAST of ENGLAND, on the FLANKS of the WEALD, and over ~he SURFACE Of the SOUTH and NORTH DOWNS. By Sir RODEalCK I~PEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., F.E.S.G.S. &e. [This paper will appear in the next Part.]

2. On a DEPOSIT at FOLKESTONE containing BoNEs of MAMMALIA. By SAMUEL J. MACKIE, Esq., F.G.S. THE high ground of the Lower Greensand at Folkestone forms a gently inclined plain, stretching inland as far as the hills of the Chalk- escarpment. Between this plain, which constitutes the West Cliff, and the East Cliff or Copt Point, there is a valley*, from 40 to 90 feet deep, in which a considerable part of the Old Town is built, extend- ing in a curving direction through the village of Ford (at which place it is crossed by the viaduct of the South Eastern Railway) towards * See View of Folkestone in Dr. Fitton's Section of the Coast, Trans. Geol. Soc. N. S. vol. iv. Pl. 8. VOL, VII.--PART I. T Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May14, the escarpment of the hills, which skirt, as it were, the sandstone- plain of the West Cliff. Fig. 1 .--Plan of a part of the Town of Folkestone.

a. Section of the Bone-bed, &c., exposed at Mr. Craxford's house, on the Bayle (see fig. 3). b. The lowest point at which the Brick-earth occurs. ~ Section of the Brick-earth and angular.flint~gravel, exposed at London Street (see fig. 4). 9Section of the Brick-earth at Porter's Saw Mill. e. Section of the Bone-bed at the Town Sewer on the Bayle. The shaded portion of the Bayle indicates the extent of the Bone-bed. At the south-eastern corner of this plain (at an elevation of 110 feet above low-water-mark) on the top of the West Cliff, under the Battery, and lying immediately on the upper beds of the Lower Greensand, which are of loose disintegrated sand, is a deposit, from 1 to 9 feet thick, consisting of flint pebbles and boulders; Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

1851.] MACKIE ON THE FOLKESTONE BONE BED. 259 the former are small and round, the latter generally angular and slightly worn. With these are associated fragments of compact ferruginous sandstone, and the whole is intermixed with loamy sand and calcareous gritty marl. The marl, for the most part, forms the upper portion of the bed, which extends on the face of the cliff for a distance of 320 feet. The bed may be here seen following the irregularities of the uneven surface of the rock on which it rests, and distinctly displaying the variations in its thickness (see fig. 2). It contains, generally in the lower part, a considerable number of the remains of Elephant, Ox, Stag, Hyeena, Hippopotamus, Irish Deer, &c., and, in the marly portion, numerous specimens of two or three species of Helix* : no fluviatile molluscs have hitherto been observed. The Bones and Shells, however, are found both in the gravel and in the calcareous marl above it. This bed appears to be cut off by the valley, previously referred to, towards which it thins out altogether ; and no traces of organic remains have been found on the east side of the town. On the west it thins off beneath a bed of dark brown clay, much resembling the superficial brick-earth that is found on the surface of the plain, and at many places in the neighbouring country. The shaded portion, comprising the Bayle and the Battery, on the accompanying plan (fig. 1) shows the extent of the deposit, as above described. But its distribution is much more extensive, if we regard this bed as being intimately connected with the flint and iron-sandstone Drift which covers the tops of the Chalk-hills, and with the Brick-clay found on the Gault and Greensand plain on which this Bone-bed lies.

Fig. 2.--Section of a part of the West Cliff', Folkestone.

The Section, fig. 2, represents the "Bone Bed" as seen on the face of the West Cliff (see Plan) ; and the Section, fig. 3, taken at a right * First observed by Mr. J. Morris, F.G.S. T2 Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

260 PROCEEDINGSOF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 14,

angle to the foregoing, was exposed in the excavation lbr Mr. Crax- ford's House. (See Plan, fig. 1, a.)

Fig. 3.--Part of the Section exposed in digging the .foundation of Mr. Craxford' s House. Length 35 feet ; height 14 feet. The base of the Section is on the Road, 105 feet above low-water mark.

The whole of the "Bone Bed" appears to have been subjected to the action of water, as the flints and grit-boulders, although angular, are partially worn, and the chalk-nodules and softer pebbles are completely rounded; the stratification, also, of the marl, sand, and boulders follows the irregularities of the Lower Greensand on which they rest. There is no evidence that this deposit was of marine origin, marine remains* not having been found in it ; on the other hand, the bones of Mammals and the Snail-shells, with which it abounds, would indicate its fluviatile or lacustrine orion. The presence of a breccia of chalk-flints, if so it may be termed, at this spot is somewhat singular, no flinty chalk occurring at a less distance than six miles to the north or east, and the grey chalk rising between that member of the Cretaceous group and the "Bone-deposit," and forming the highest ground of the whole district. The finer portions of calcareous marl and loam would, to a great extent, appear to have been derived from the waste of the Chalk, the marl possessing all the usual mineral characters of such sediments ; and I have also found the little TereSratula rigida, so characteristic of the Chalk, in the sandy loam. A microscopic investigation carries this view still further, and favours also the idea of the probable iden- tity of age and origin of the Bone-bed with the Brick-clay and Drift ; the calcareous marl of the first-named deposit abounding with Fora- minifera and other microscopic organisms, many forms of which are * Excepting foraminifera, &c., of the Chalk, obviously derived from detrital action. Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

1851.'] MACKIE ON THE FOLKESTONE BONE BED. ~61 immediately recognized as the ordinary species of the Chalk; the same also being the case with the Brick-earth and the clayey portions of the Drift.

Mr. Rupert Jones, who at m y request ~ examined myw prepared "slides," as well as a small quantity of the marl and brick-earth, has kindly furnished me with the following lists. From the Calcareous Marl of the Bone-bed :-- Verneuilina tricarinata. Prismatic fragments of Inoceramus. Textularia globosa, trochus, and others. Fragments of Echinodermata. Polymorphina ? Ossicles of Apiocrinites. Bulimina variabilis and another. Valves of CythereUa ovata and C. trun~ Rosalina. cata. Globigerina cretacea. Bairdia subdeltoidea and B. Har- Cristellaria rotulata and another, risiana. Rotalia globosa. - Cvthere Hilseana (? derived from Nodosaria. Chalk-marl). Single cells, ovoidal and globular, = Oo- lin~e ? and portions of other Forami- nifera. From the Brick-earth of Gambrill's Pit, } mile N.W. of the Bayle :-- Rotali~e, Rosalind, and single ovoidal Helix. cells. Pupa. In the Drift of Folkestone Hill, Chalk-organisms are plentiful. Two excavations on the West Cliff, one for Mr. Craxford's House (see Plan, fig. 1, a), the other for the Town-sewer on the Bayle (see Plan, fig. l, e), have afforded me all my present collection of bones and shells from this deposit. List of the Organic Remain~from the "Bone Bed." BoxEs ANY Hoa~s. Megaceros Hibernieus. Elephas primigenius. Equus. Hippopotamus major. Hyaena spel~ea~ Bos primigenius. SHELLS. urns. longifrons. Helix nemoralis. Cervus elephas. ~ eoncinna. Prof. Owen kindly inspected and determined a large collection of the bones exhibited to the Society. The list comprises also some other specimens determined by H. Turner, jun., Esq.

The Drift and Brick-earth.--The probable relation of the mam- maliferous deposit above-described with the Drift was suggested to me by Sir Roderiek I. Murchison,--the occurrence of angular flints being singularly characteristic in both cases, to which fact the following example, fig. 4, one out of the many that could be given, has especial reference. The sections of Drift and Brick-earth everywhere in the neighbour- hood and at every elevation from 40 to 570 feet above the sea present this peculiar feature. I would briefly observe that at Mr. Gambrill's Brick-Pit, at the back of Sandfield Villas, on the west side of the valley and inland of the Bone-bed, there is a thickness of 15 feet of clay, through which Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 14, run, at short distances apart, thin layers of small pieces of flint and ferruginous grit, termed "roach" by the workmen, and from the lowest seams of which I have a fragment of bone (Horse), found by one of the labourers in digging the bF,ck-earth.

Fig. 4.--Section of the Brick-earth at London Street. Length 80 feet; height 17 feet.

The lower portion of this clay contains abundantly land- and fresh- water-shells, namely :- Helix concinna. $uceinea oblonga. Pupa. At a distance of about 70 feet to the north of this pit, the Lower Greensand is found (at the side of the road leading to Ford) only 4 feet from the surface,--showing the face of the greensand against which the brick-earth there abuts to be very steep. I may add that I have the antler of a Deer from the New Reservoir of the Water-works at the Cherry Garden, N.N.W. of the Bayle (at an elevation of 232 feet), the core of a horn of Bos urus from an excavation at the corner of Darlington Place, 88mile N. of the Town Hall, near the Viaduct (elevation 138 feet), and that a large fragment of a Cetacean bone is in the possession of William Bateman, jun., Esq., of this town, who obtained it of one of the workmen employed at Porter's Saw Mill (elevation 50 feet), see Plan, fig. l, d; but, not having been present at any of these excavations, I cannot state the mineral characters of the beds in which they were found ; in the last two cases I believe them to be the ordinary brick-earth. I have digressed thus far from my proper subject, thinking the above facts, with my discovery of the microscopic organisms of the Chalk in the Bone-bed, Drift, and Brick-clay, would indicate some relation between these three deposits, and serve to determine in some measure the probable epoch of the formation of the Bed to which this paper refers. Downloaded from http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/ at Duke University on November 29, 2013

1851.] SALTER ON SILURIAN FISH REMAINS. 263

MAY 28, 1851.

The following communications were read :-- 1. On the GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE Of the MOUNTAIN RANGE of WESTERN PERSIA. ByWILLIAM KENNETT LOFTUS, Esq., F.G.S. [In a letter to J. S. Bowerbank, Esq., F.G.S.] F~w mountain-regions, perhaps, exhibit such uniformity of structure as the Tagros Range. Here the direction of the great chains is generally from south-east to north-west, the Tagros consisting entirely of a succession of limestone saddles which extend in parallel lines for many miles, the troughs between being filled with much-contorted beds of gypsum and variegated marls. No fossils whatever are found in these gypsum-beds, but in the limestone are sparingly scattered Ostr~e~e, Bueeina, Nummulites, and Echini, of tertiary forms, as far as I am able to judge ; but the rock is so crystalline that it is impossible to procure a single specimen exhibiting any decided character. The beds below the limestone are red chert-conglomerates, sandstones, and blue shales. At Khorramabad the Yaftah Kuh rises abruptly from the plain and consists of grey cherty limestone, abounding with thick beds of flint, which I am inclined to believe belong to the Chalk-formation, although fossils are entirely wanting. On the eastern side of the Tagros, as far as the base of the Kuh Elwend, the serrated peaks, which rise from these high table-lands and form picturesque, although by no means magnificent scenery, are of hard, compact, and crystalline blue limestone, containing a few of the same fossils as before. This rests unconformably on beds of yellow slaty limestone, which again rest upon clay-slates. At Ktth Elwend these clay-slates are raised into a vertical position by felspathic granite, which constitutes the axis of the chain. Beds of mica-schist are also found in conjunction with the clay-slates. From Hamadan to Isfahan the order is as follows (descending) :--1. blue limestone, much contorted ; 2. yellow calcareous slates ; and 3. clay-slates.

2. On the REMAINS of FISH in the SILURIAN ROCKS of GREAT BRITAIN. By JOHN WILLIAM SALTER, Esq., F.G.S. ~k BELIEF in the existence of Fish-remains in the older members of the Silurian system, as well as in newer deposits of that period, has of late years grown prevalent in this country, and has attracted considerable attention. The statements put forward in the session of 1846-7 by two of our leading geologists as to these remains having positively been found in these lower strata, by Professor Sedgwick in South Wales, and by the collectors of the Geological Survey in North Wales, added to the fact of Professor M'Coy having previously described a fish-scale from the Silurian rocks of Waterford, appear to give a sufficient basis for this opinion. It has now assumed a definite