ENGLAND IN THE EOCENE PERIOD.
Eocene is Sir Charles Lyell’s term for the lowest group of the Tertiary system in which the dawn of recent life appears; and any one who wishes to realise what was the aspect presented by this country during the Eocene period, need only go to Sheerness. If, leaving that place behind him, he walks down the Thames, keeping close to the edge of the water, he will find whole bushels of pyritised pieces of twigs and fruits. These fruits and twigs belong to plants nearly allied to the screw-pine and custard-apple, and to various species of palms and spice-trees which now flourish in the Eastern Archipelago. At the time they were washed down from some neighbouring land, not only crocodilian reptiles, but sharks and innumerable turtles, inhabited a sea or estuary which now forms part of the London district; and huge boa-constrictors glided amongst the trees which fringed the adjoining shores.
Countless as are the ages which intervened between the Eocene period and the time when the little jawbones of Stonesfield were washed down to the place where they were to await the day when science should bring them again to light, not one mammalian genus which now lives upon our plane has been discovered amongst Eocene strata. We have existing families, but nothing more.—Professor Owen.