_Freshwater beds_ (2. _a_, Table, p. 175.).--In the northern part of the Isle of Wight, beds of marl, clay, and sand, and a friable limestone, containing freshwater shells, are seen, containing shells of the genera _Lymnea_ (see fig. 170.), _Planorbis_, _Melanopsis_, _Cyrena_, &c., several of them of the same species as those occurring in the Eocene beds of the Paris basin. Gyrogonites, also, or seed-vessels of _Chara_, exhibiting a similar specific identity, occur. At Headon Hill, on the western side of the island, where these beds are seen in the sea-cliffs, some of the strata contain a few marine and estuary shells, such as _Cytheraea_, _Corbula_, &c., showing a temporary occupation of the area by brackish or salt water, after which the river or a lake seems again to have prevailed. A species of fan-palm, _Flabellaria Lamanonis_, Brong., like one which characterizes the Parisian Eocene beds, has been recently detected by Dr. Mantell in this formation, in Whitecliff Bay, at the eastern end of the island. Several of the species of extinct quadrupeds already alluded to as characterizing the gypsum of Montmartre have been discovered by Messrs. Pratt and Fox, in the Isle of Wight, chiefly at Binstead, near Ryde, as _Palaeotherium magnum_, _P. medium_, _P. minus_, _P. minimum_, _P. curtum_, _P. crassum_, also _Anoplotherium commune_, _A. secundarium_, _Dichobune cervinum_, and _Chaeropotamus Cuvieri_. In Hordwell cliff, also on the Hampshire coast, several of these species, with other quadrupeds of new genera, such as _Paloplotherium_, Owen, have been met with; and remains of a remarkable carnivorous genus, _Hyaenodon_. These fossils are accompanied by the bones of _Trionyx_, and other tortoises, and by two land snakes of the genus _Paleryx_, Owen, from 3 to 4 feet long, also a species of crocodile, and an alligator. Among other fossils collected by Lady Hastings, Sir Philip Egerton has recognized the well-known gar or bony pike of the American rivers, a ganoid fish of the genus _Lepidotus_, with its hard shining scales. The shells of Hordwell are similar to those of the freshwater beds of the Isle of Wight, and among them are a few specifically undistinguishable from recent testacea, as _Paludina lenta_ and _Helix labyrinthica_, the latter discovered by Mr. S. Wood, and identified with an existing N. American helix. The white and green marls of this freshwater series in Hampshire, and some of the accompanying limestones, often resemble those 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.