On the Age and Relations of the Phosphatic Chalk of Taplow

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Abstract
I. I ntroduction . I n the course of an investigation of the Upper Chalk in the western part of the London Basin, we had occasion, last autumn, to examine the pit at the South Lodge of Taplow Court, to which so much attention was attracted twelve years ago by Mr. A. Strahan's discovery of the richly-phosphatic character of some of the beds therein exposed. It was originally intended to devote no more than a few paragraphs to this section, in a short account of the highest beds of the Chalk and their relations with the Lower Eocene sediments in the whole area, which we have in preparation; but the difficulties in the way of a satisfactory interpretation which presented themselves at the preliminary inspection referred to, and seemed, for a time, but to increase with succeeding visits, compelled us to undertake a minute examination of the beds, and the results of this work now appear to be of sufficient interest to merit the more detailed discussion obtainable in a separate paper. In dealing with the phenomena of a single exposure of a rock having so wide a lateral range as the Chalk, some loss of the sense of continuity and of proportion is usually inevitable; but a separate treatment of the Taplow-Court section appears to be justified, no less by the remoteness of the beds from any visible Chalk of a similar age, than by their exceptional lithological character. References to the Phosphatic Chalk of Taplow are numerous and widely scattered, but

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