The rocks which actually represent the _Upper Cretaceous period_ divide
themselves naturally into six series; but British and French geologists
make some distinction: the former dividing them into 1, _Maestricht_ and
_Faxoe_ beds, said not to occur in England; 2, _White Chalk_, with
_flints_; 3, _White Chalk_, without _flint_s; 4, _Chalk Marl_; 5, _Upper
Greensand_; and 6, _Gault_. The latter four are divided by foreign
geologists into 1, _Turonian_; 2, _Senonian_; 3, _Danian_.
The _Gault_ is the lowest member of the Upper Cretaceous group. It
consists of a bluish-black clay mixed with greensand, which underlies
the Upper Greensand. Near Cambridge, where the Gault is about 200 feet
thick, a layer of shells, bones, and nodules, called the “Coprolite
Bed,” from nine inches to a foot thick, represents the Upper Greensand,
and rests on the top of the Gault Clay. These nodules and fossils are
extensively worked on account of the phosphatic matter they contain, and
when ground and converted into superphosphate of lime they furnish a
very valuable agricultural manure. The Gault attains a thickness of
about 100 feet on the south-east coast of England. It extends into
Devonshire, Mr. Sharpe considering the Black Down beds of that country
as its equivalents. It shows itself in the Departments of the
Pas-de-Calais, the Ardennes, the Meuse, the Aube, the Yonne, the Ain,
the Calvados, and the Seine-Inférieure. It presents very many distinct
mineral forms, among which two predominate: green sandstone and blackish
or grey clays. It is important to know this formation, for it is at this
level that the Artesian waters flow in the wells of Passy and Grenelle,
near Paris.
The _glaucous_ chalk, or Upper Greensand, which is represented typically
in the departments of the Sarthe, of the Charente-Inférieure, of the
Yonne and the Var, is composed of quartzose sand, clay, sandstone, and
limestone. In this formation, at the mouth of the Charente, we find a
remarkable bed, which has been described as a submarine forest. It
consists of large trees with their branches imbedded horizontally in
vegetable matter, containing kidney-shaped nodules of amber, or
fossilised resin.
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