Fig. 184.
Molar of monkey (Macacus).
Strata of Kyson in Suffolk.—At Kyson, a few miles east of Woodbridge, a bed of Eocene clay, 12 feet thick, underlies the red crag. Beneath it is a deposit of yellow and white sand, of considerable interest, in consequence of many peculiar fossils contained in it. Its geological position is probably the lowest part of the London clay proper. In this sand has been found the first example of a fossil quadrumanous animal discovered in Great Britain, namely, the teeth and part of a jaw, shown by Mr. Owen to belong to a monkey of the genus Macacus (see [fig. 184.]). The mammiferous fossils, first met with in the same bed, were those of an opossum (Didelphys) (see [fig. 185.]), and an insectivorous bat ([fig. 186.]), together with many teeth of fishes of the shark family. Mr. Colchester in 1840 obtained other mammalian relics from Kyson, among which Mr. Owen has recognized several teeth of the genus Hyracotherium, and the vertebræ of a large serpent, probably a Palæophis. As the remains both of the Hyracotherium and Palæophis were afterwards met with in the London clay, as before remarked, these fossils confirmed the opinion previously entertained, that the Kyson sand belongs to the Eocene period. The Macacus, therefore, constitutes the first example of any quadrumanous animal found in strata as old as the Eocene, or so far from the equator as lat. 52° N. It was not until after the year 1836 that the existence of any fossil quadrumana was brought to light. Since that period they have been found in France, India, and Brazil.
Fig. 185.
Molar tooth and part of jaw of opossum. From Kyson.[203-A]