It is worth noticing that these, like all the Bracklesham beds, roll. In a pit which Mr. Keeping and myself dug we found there had been a regular displacement of the gravel, and that the beds rose at an angle of thirty degrees, whilst the fossil bed was three feet lower on one side than the other of the pit. In another, after cutting through a foot of gravel, in which we found the _os inominatum_, of probably _Bos longifrons_,[276] and a bed of sandy clay about two feet in thickness, we came upon a deposit of gravel about four inches thick, lying in the depressions of the stiff brown clay which succeeded, and in which still remained roots and vegetable matter. Thus we can plainly see that, after the clay had been deposited, vegetable, and perhaps animal, life flourished. Then came the gravel, carrying all before it, and in its turn, too, was nearly swept away, and only left here and there in a few scattered patches. Perhaps, nothing is so startling as this insecurity of life. As was the Past so will be the Future, guided, though, always by that Law, which at every step still rises, moving in no circle, but out of ruin bringing order, and from Death, Life. The Brook Beds I can best describe for the general reader by an account of a pit which Mr. Keeping and myself made. It was sunk about 20 feet from the King’s Gairn Brook, and measured about 6 yards long by 4 broad. We first cut through a loamy sand, measuring 3 feet, and then came upon 19 inches of gravel, where at the base stretched the half fossilized trunk of an oak, and a thick drift of leaves mixed with black peaty matter, the remains of some primæval forest. Three feet of light-coloured clay, unfossiliferous, succeeded; and then came the _Corbula_ Bed, with its myriads of _Corbula pisum_, massed together, nearly all pierced by their enemies, the _Murices_. Stiff light-coloured clay, measuring 18 inches, followed, revealing some of the shells, which were to be found so plentiful in the next stratum. Here, at the _Pleurotoma attenuata_ Bed, our harvest commenced, and since Mr. Keeping has worked these beds, no spot has ever yielded such rich results. Every stroke of the pick showed the pearl and opal-shaded colours of the nautilus, and the rich chestnut glaze of the _Pecten corneus_, whilst at the bottom lay the great thick-shelled _Carditæ planicostæ_. Inside one of these were enclosed two most lovely specimens of _Calyptræa trochiformis_. Mr. Keeping here, too, found a young specimen of _Natica cepacea_ (?), and I had the good fortune to turn up the largest _Pleurotoma attenuata_ ever yet discovered, measuring 4½ inches in length, and 3¼ inches in circumference round the thickest whorl.