Ch. XIX.]

371

“ ELEPHANT-BED.”

not unfrequently in the drift of the valley of the Thames . In ex-planation I may remark that, in the Blackheath and other Eocene shingle-beds, hard egg-shaped flint-pebbles may be found in such astate of decomposition as to break in the same manner on the appli-cation of a moderate blow, such as stones might encounter iu thebed of a swollen river or on a sea-coast.

Angular flint-breccia is not confined to the Weald, nor to thetransverse gorges in the chalk, but extends along the neighbouringcoast from Brighton to Rottingdean, where it was called byDr. Mantell “ the elephant-bed,” because the bones of the mammoth,E. primigenius, abound in it with those of the horse and, morerarely, the rhinoceros, II. tichorhinus. The following is a section ofthis formation as it appears in the Brighton cliff.*

Fig. 366.

A. Chalk with layers of flint dipping slightly to the south.

b. Ancient beach, consisting ot fine sand, from one to four feet thick, covered by 6hingle from five

to eight feet thick of pebbles of chalk-flint, granite, and other rocks, with broken shells ofrecent marine species, and bones of cetacea.

c. Elephant-bed, about fifty leet thick, consisting of layers of white chalk rubble, with broken chalk-

flints, often more confusedly stratified than is represented in this drawing, in which depositare found bones of ox, deer, horse, and mammoth.

d. Sand and shingle of modern beach.

To explain this section we must suppose that, after the excava-tion of the cliff A, the beach of sand and shingle b was formed bythe long-continued action of the sea. The presence of Liltorinalittorea and other recent littoral shells determines the modern dateof the accumulation. The overlying beds are composed of suchcalcareous rubble and flints, rudely stratified, as are often con-spicuous in parts of the Norfolk coast, where they are associatedwith glacial drift, and were probably of contemporaneous origin.Similar flints and chalk-rubble have been recently traced by Sir Roderick Murchison to Folkestone and along the face of thecliffs at Dover, where the teeth of the fossil elephant have beendetected.

Mr. Prestwich also has shown that at Sangatte , near Calais , on

* See also Sir It. Murchison , Geol. Quart. Journ., vol. vii. p. 365.bb 2