On the Distribution of the British Postglacial Mammals

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Abstract
§1. Introduction .—The materials on which this essay is founded are the result of ten years' work on the Pleistocene Mammalia of Great Britain, during which every public Museum and private collection of note in the United Kingdom has been examined, either by myself or by some one on whose judgment I could depend. To “The specimen of Gault,” Mr. Forbes writes, “is, properly speaking, a marl (not a clay), being a mixture of ferruginous clay with a considerable quantity of carbonate of lime. The iron contained in it is all in the state of protoxide, amounting to 5·96 per cent., which would be equivalent to 6·606 per cent. of sesquioxide (red oxide) of iron, or to 4·62 per cent. metallic iron. The Hunstanton Red Chalk contains more carbonate of lime and much less clay than the above; and all the iron it contains is in the state of sesquioxide (red oxide), which amounts to 5·96 per cent., or is equivalent to 5·28 per cent. of protoxide of iron, or 4·10 metallic iron in the substance; it consequently, notwithstanding its red, or what generally would be termed ferruginous appearance, in reality does not contain quite as much iron as the Gault does, which has no such aspect; there seems to be no objection, from a chemico-geological point of view, why these rocks may not be representatives of one another. If the Gault were subjected to any oxidizing influences it would assume the red colour of the Hunstanton rocks, as it does

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