Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 31.djvu/100

This page needs to be proofread.
54
QUATERNARY PHENOMENA IN THE ISLE OF PORTLAND ETC.

54 QUATERNARY PHENOMENA IN THE ISLE OF PORTLAND ETC. west disturbances might be assigned, they were evidently compara- tively recent. The phenomena shown in the section described by Mr. Prestwich corresponded with what might be observed in modern beaches. The angular gravels might be due to glacial action. Mr. Gwzn Jeffreys stated that the first shell-sand sent to him by Mr. Prestwich from the raised beach contained species identical with those now living on that coast ; but the second collection gave spe- cies not found nearer than Scarborough and Dublin. He referred to the abundance of Cyamium minutum, a Greenland species which also inhabits the coasts of New England, is rare in the south of England, but very common in Scotland. He regarded the raised sea-beach as of the same character as the existing sea-beaches in Shetland : the species were essentially northern; and no Mediterranean forms were met with. In the Selsea raised beach the species are southern. Mr. Prestwich, in reply, stated that the fissures referred to by Mr. Eisher are comparatively recent, and that probably the spe- cimen of Elephant referred to by Mr. Eisher had been wrongly referred to that locality. In the collection from the fissures at the Yerne he had seen no Elephant-remains, but only those he had mentioned in the paper.