Note 176 — Chapter XI

This wealth of finds has been largely due to the "coprolite" digging, as it was inaccurately called, which went on here (and throughout the neighbourhood) during the whole latter half of the nineteenth century. It had been discovered that the "upper greensand"[176] (here a narrow deposit immediately over the gault and usually some fifteen or twenty feet below the surface) was full of organic remains worth extracting for manure. These remains were never true coprolites, but mostly formless nodules rich in phosphate of lime, many being sponges, along with abundance of sea-urchins, mollusca, crabs, and innumerable sharks' teeth.