"cone-beds." They were certainly known to Dr. Mantell; and specimens of their fossils have long been preserved in local museums.
The strata and their remarkable fossils were casually alluded to by Dr. Fitton in 1836, though their great importance was not at that time recognized*.
It is to Mr. Godwin- Austen, who in the year 1850 laid before this Society a collection of the fossils of Punfield, that geologists are indebted for first calling attention to the great interest attaching to these remarkable beds. The collection excited at the time much notice, and Professor Edward Forbes, then engaged in the preparation of a memoir on the Wealden -Purbeck, which he unfortunately did not live to complete, pronounced that the fauna of these beds (which he recognized as being clearly intercalated in the Wealden series), while it had an undoubtedly Neocomian aspect, included a number of new species, and several forms for which a new genus would have to be created. As we shall see in the sequel, the views of Professor Forbes have been completely substantiated by the labours of subsequent observers.
In his Anniversary Address before this Society in 1851, Sir Charles Lyell made special reference to the remarkable beds at Punfield, and their bearing upon geological theory†; and in all the subsequent editions of his ' Elements of Geology ' he has alluded to the subject as one of great importance‡.
In the Rev. John Austin's little memoir on the Isle of Purbeck, the beds are briefly described §.
Mr. Godwin- Austen, in his celebrated paper " On the possible Extension of the Coal-Measures beneath the South-Eastern part of England" ||, read in May 1855, again referred to the Punfield beds, and founded some arguments on their existence.
In the same year (1855) appeared the Geological Survey map of the Isle of Purbeck, the work of Mr. Bristow, upon which a note points out the existence of marine beds in the upper part of the Wealden, and gives a list of some of the genera of fossils represented¶.
Mr. Godwin- Austen presented his collection of Punfield fossils to the Museum of Practical Geology, where it was supplemented by the specimens obtained by Professor Edward Forbes and the collectors of the Survey. Mr. Etheridge, fully recognizing the great value and importance of these fossils, not only caused them to be carefully preserved, but, as several of them were of a perishable nature, had careful drawings of them made by Mr. Bone, the Artist to the Survey. Being engaged in the study of the fossils of this age, I some time ago examined this series of fossils, and to my surprise
- Trans. Geol. Soc. Ser. 2, vol. iv. pp. 207 and 228.
† Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vii. p. lix.
‡ Manual of Geology, 3rd ed. p. 229 (and all subsequent editions).
§ A Guide to the Geology of the Isle of Purbeck &c, by the Rev. John H. Austin, p. 7.
|| Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xii. p. 66.
¶ Map of the Geological Survey of England and Wales, Sheet 16.
