The _Turonian_ beds are so named because the province of Touraine, between Saumur and Montrichard, possesses the best-developed type of this strata. The mineralogical composition of the beds is a fine and grey marly chalk, as at Vitry-le-François; of a pure white chalk, with a very fine grain, slightly argillaceous, and poor in fossils, in the Departments of the Yonne, the Aube, and the Seine-Inférieure; granular tufaceous chalk, white or yellowish, mixed with spangles of mica, and containing Ammonites, in Touraine and a part of the Department of the Sarthe; white, grey, yellow, or bluish limestone, inclosing Hippurites and Radiolites. In England the Lower Chalk passes also into Chalk Marl, with Ammonites, and then into beds known as the Upper Greensand, containing green particles of glauconite, mixed, in Hampshire and Surrey, with much calcareous matter. In the Isle of Wight this formation attains a thickness of 100 feet. The _Senonian_ beds take their name from the ancient _Senones_. The city of Sens is in the centre of the best-characterised portion of this formation; Epernay, Meudon, Sens, Vendôme, Royau, Cognac, Saintes, are the typical regions of the formation in France. In the Paris basin, inclusive of the Tours beds, it attains a thickness of upwards of 1,500 feet, as was proved by the samples brought up, during the sinking of the Artesian well, at Grenelle, by the borings. In its geographical distribution the Chalk has an immense range; fine Chalk of nearly similar aspect and composition being met with in all directions over hundreds of miles, alternating in its lower beds with layers of flints. In England the higher beds usually consist of a pure-white calcareous mass, generally too soft for building-stone, but sometimes passing into a solid rock. The _Danian_ beds, which occupy the summit of the scale in the Cretaceous formation, are finely developed at Maestricht, on the Meuse; and in the Island of Zeeland, belonging to Denmark; where they are represented by a slightly yellowish, compact limestone, quarried for the construction of the city of Faxoe. It is slightly represented in the Paris basin at Meudon, and Laversines, in the Department of the Oise, by a white and often rubbly limestone known as _pisolitic limestone_. In this formation _Ammonites Danicus_ is found. The yellowish sandy limestone of Maestricht is referred to the _Danian_ type. Besides Molluscs, Polyps, and Polyzoa (Bryozoa), this limestone contains remains of Fishes, Turtles, and Crocodiles. But what has rendered this rock so celebrated was that it contained the remains of the _great animal of Mæstricht_, the Mæsasaurus.