The Student's Elements of GeologyLyell, Charles, Sir
Science
The Student's Elements of Geology
Lyell, Charles, Sir
Geology
At and near the base of the Red Crag is a loose bed of brown nodules,
first noticed by Professor Henslow as containing a large percentage of
earthy phosphates. This bed of coprolites (as it is called, because
they were originally supposed to be the fæces of animals) does not
always occur at one level, but is generally in largest quantity at the
junction of the Crag and the underlying formation. In thickness it
usually varies from six to eighteen inches, and in some rare cases
amounts to many feet. It has been much used in agriculture for manure,
as not only the nodules, but many of the separate bones associated with
them, are largely impregnated with phosphate of lime, of which there is
sometimes as much as sixty per cent. They are not unfrequently covered
with barnacles, showing that they were not formed as concretions in the
stratum where they now lie buried, but had been previously
consolidated. The phosphatic nodules often collect fossil crabs and
fishes from the London Clay, together with the teeth of gigantic
sharks. In the same bed have been found many ear-bones of whales, and
the teeth of _Mastodon arvernensis, Rhinoceros Schleiermacheri, Tapirus
priscus,_ and Hipparion (a quadruped of the horse family), and antlers
of a stag, _Cervus anoceros._ Organic remains also of the older chalk
and Lias are met with, showing how great was the denudation of previous
formations during the Pliocene period. As the older White Crag,
presently to be mentioned, contains similar phosphatic nodules near its
base, those of the Red Crag may be partly derived from this source.
White or Coralline Crag.—The lower or Coralline Crag is of very limited
extent, ranging over an area about twenty miles in length, and three or
four in breadth, between the rivers Stour and Alde, in Suffolk. It is
generally calcareous and marly—often a mass of comminuted shells, and
the remains of bryozoa[2] (or polyzoa), passing occasionally into a
soft building-stone. At Sudbourn and Gedgrave, near Orford, this
building-stone has been largely quarried. At some places in the
neighbourhood the softer mass is divided by thin flags of hard
limestone, and bryozoa placed in the upright position in which they
grew. From the abundance of these coralloid mollusca the lowest or
White Crag obtained its popular name, but true corals, as now defined,
or zoantharia, are very rare in this formation.
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