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It is true that about forty of them range from British to high northern latitudes; but several of them, as, for example, Lutraria rugosa and Pecten polymorphous, which are abundant, are not known at present to range farther north than the coast of Portugal, and seem to indicate a warmer temperature than now prevails on the coast where we find them fossil.
In some of the sandy soil recently thrown out of the trenches, I observed specimens of freshwater and brackish-water shells, such as Unio and Dreissena, of living species; and in clay brought up from below the sand, shells of Tellina, Lutraria, and Cardium, all of species now inhabiting the adjoining sea.
Let us walk on to some cleaner heap, and leave these, the great Lutraria Elliptica, which have been lying buried by thousands in the sandy mud, each with the point of its long siphon above the surface, sucking in and driving out again the salt water on which it feeds, till last night's ground-swell shifted the sea-bottom, and drove them up hither to perish helpless, but not useless, on the beach.
The presence among them of Lutraria rugosa and Pecten polymorphus, not known to range farther north in the actual seas than the coast of Portugal, indicates a somewhat warmer temperature at the time when they flourished.
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