Marine beds of deeper water origin may be found not only close to the coast-line, but frequently on the tops of inland hills some miles from the sea-coast. Their included sea-shells and other organic remains are often found covered by fine sediment forming extensive beds; and they may frequently occur in the position in which they lived and died (Fig. 7). Although it is well known that sea-birds carry shell-fish for some distance inland, yet this would not account for more than a few isolated examples. =Raised Beaches as Distinct from Middens.--= Again, it may be argued that the primitive inhabitants of countries bordering the coast were in the habit of piling up the empty shells of the edible molluscs used by them for food: but these "kitchen middens" are easily distinguished from fossil deposits like shelly beaches, by the absence of stratified layers; and, further, by the shells being confined to edible species, as the Cockle (_Cardium_), the Blood-cockle (_Arca_), the Mussel (_Mytilus_), and the Oyster (_Ostrea_) (Fig. 8). [Illustration: =Fig. 8.--Remains of Edible Shell Fish= (Kitchen-midden--native, mirrn-yong) in Sand Dunes near Spring Creek, Torquay, Victoria. (_Original_). ] [Illustration: =Fig. 9.--Part of a Submerged Forest= seen at low water on the Cheshire coast at Leasowe, England. (_From Seward's "Fossil Plants"_) ] =Submerged Forests.--= Evidence of change in the coast-line is shown by the occurrence of submerged forest-land, known as "fossil forests," which consist of the stumps of trees still embedded in the black, loamy soil. Such forests, when of comparatively recent age, are found near the existing coast-line, and may sometimes extend for a considerable distance out to sea (Fig. 9). From the foregoing we learn that:-- _1.--Fossils afford data of the various Changes that have taken place in past times in the Relative Positions of Land and Water._ =Changes of Climate in the Past.--= At the present day we find special groups of animals (fauna), and plants (flora), restricted to tropical climates; and others, conversely, to the arctic regions. Cycads and tree-ferns, for example, seem to flourish best in warm or sub-tropical countries: yet in past times they were abundant in northern Europe in what are now temperate and arctic regions, as in Yorkshire, Spitzbergen, and Northern Siberia, where indeed at one time they formed the principal flora. The rein-deer and musk-sheep, now to be found only in the arctic regions, once lived in the South of England, France and Germany. The dwarf willow (_Salix polaris_) and an arctic moss (_Hypnum turgescens_), now restricted to the same cold region, occur fossil in the South of England.