[275]These beds were discovered by Mr. Fisher in 1861, and for the following measurements I am indebted to Mr. Keeping. We find, about one hundred yards in a south-eastward direction from the point where the footpath from Brook to Fritham crosses the stream, (1) the Coral Bed, the equivalent of that at Stubbington, full of crushed _Dentalia_ and _Serpulæ_, six inches. (2) Sandy light blue clay, with very few fossils, seven feet. (3) Verdigris-green and slate-coloured clay, characterized near the top by a new species of _Dentalium_, _Serpulorbis Morchii_ (?), and _Spondylus rarispina_. The other typical shells are _Voluta Maga_, several species of _Arca_ and _Corbula gallica_, five feet. It is in this bed that large roots of trees and ferns are found. No persons, however, I should suppose, would think of examining any of these beds without first consulting Mr. Fisher’s most valuable paper on the Bracklesham Beds in the _Proceedings of the Geological Society_, May, 1862. And I should further most strongly advise them, if they wish to become practically acquainted with the beds, to procure the assistance of Mr. Keeping, of Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight. I may here also mention that a well is at the present moment being sunk at Emery Down, and which, as I learn from Mr. Keeping, gives the following interesting measurements:—(1) Beds of marl, containing _Voluta geminata_, discovered forty years ago, at Cutwalk Hill, by Sir Charles Lyell, and now re-discovered, and a small _Marginella_, seven feet. (2) Bed of bluish sandy clay, which becomes, when weathered, excessively brown. This bed, very rich in fossils, which are in a good state of preservation, is equivalent to what is now called the Middle Marine Bed, at Hordle and Brockenhurst, sixteen to nineteen feet. (3) Hordle Freshwater Beds, containing two species of _Potanomya_, and comminuted shells, fifteen feet. (4) Upper Bagshot Sands, measuring, as far as the workmen have gone, twenty feet, and below which lies the water at the top of the clay. The important point to be noticed is the extreme thinning out of the Hordle Freshwater Beds, which, from the depth of two hundred and fifty feet at Barton, have here shrunk to fifteen. Mr. Prestwich has suggested that these beds, as they advance in a north-easterly direction, become more marine, which seems here to be confirmed. [276]I say probably, for Professor Owen, who examined the specimen, states that it is of a bovine animal of about the same size as _Bos longifrons_, but does not yield sufficiently distinct characters for an exact specific identification.