Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/256

Rh runs a remarkable band of fine sand, the "Middle Marine Bed," discovered some twenty-five years ago, by Mr. Edwards, and subsequently successfully worked by Mr. Higgins. It is seldom, however, exposed for more than a few yards; but that is sufficient to show, that after the elevation of the beds beneath they once more subsided, and the sea came over them again, and after that they were once again elevated.

Just below Hordle House rises the "Crocodile Bed," running out of the cliff about three hundred yards from Beckton Bunny. The lowest part of it teems with fish-scales, teeth, crocodile plates, ophidian vertebrae, seed vessels, and other vegetable matter, very often mixed in a coprolitic bed, just beneath a band of tough clay, the specimens being more frequent to the east than the west. The accompanying section (I.) will, perhaps, not only serve to show the situation of the bed, but also those above and below. My measurements will be found to differ slightly from Sir Charles Lyell's and Dr. Wright's; but this is owing to their having been taken in different places.

Immediately under the "Leaf Bed," which, as seen in the opposite section, rises from the shore to the west of Hordle House, comes the lowest bed of the Lower Freshwater Series, formed of blue sandy clay sixteen feet in thickness, from whence Mr. Falconer obtained so many of his mammalian remains. 238