374
THE FOSSILIFEROTJS DEPOSITS
tire specimen, of a lepidolus, which Agassiz has identified asthe Lepidotus minor of the English Weald,—hones and teethof Plesiosaurus, a well-marked chelonian femur,—shells, bothmarine and fresh-water, such as TJnio Planorlis Paludina ,—what seem to be an Astarte and a small Ostrea, —and wholestrata formed of a minute Cyprus . There are appearancesconnected with the Linksfield deposit that date from a com-paratively recent period, which are at least as extraordinaryas aught that the beds themselves contain. They form therea small hill, about from forty to fifty feet in height, and seve-ral hundred feet in extent either way; while beneath lies athick deposit of the Old Red comstones, wrought in this lo-cality for lime. Interposed, however, between this hill ofthe Weald and the calcareous cornstones, there is a bed of theordinary boulder clay of the district, charged not only withfragments of the rock on which it lies, but also of the well-marked Wealden strata which overlie it; and, more curiousstill, the cornstone bears on its surface, so far as the quarriershave yet penetrated, the ordinary glacial markings character-istic of the. boulder clay. It would seem as if during theglacial period this hill had been so shifted or raised from it3foundations, that the agent, whatever its nature, which dur-ing the icebergal period dressed and grooved the rock-surfacesof the country, was enabled to dress and groove the cornstoneon which the hill now rests. The appearances,—suggestiveof the operations of some incalculably enormous force,—aresuited to remind one of that sublime simile employed by Mil-ton, in describing the effect of the stroke under which therebel angel reeled and fell:—
“ As if on earth
"Winds underground, or waters forcing way
Sidelong, had pushed a mountain from his seat,
Half-sunk, with all ito pinea.”