Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/56

40 We shall be obliged, by communications, and stratigraphical lists of fossils from our readers and correspondents, to assist us in our labours in determining this interesting point of Whether the ordinary division into "white chalk with flints," and "white chalk without flints," is not merely a mineralogical division, and not a proper geological subdivision characterized by distinctive organic remains, and marking out a positive zone in the succession of geological events and of life-forms; or Whether a distinguishing alteration in the organic remains of the white chalk does not happen so near the horizon of cessation of flint layers, that by including or excluding some few beds of chalk, those valuable and characteristic petrological features (of chalk with, or without flints) may not be made more precisely valuable and definite than at present.

 — The neighbourhood of Builth affords excellent specimens of many of the Lower Silurian fossils, especially trilobites. It may be useful to inform amateur and professed geologists that the little town of Builth contains a good practical geologist in the person of Mr. John Jones, gardener at Pencarrig House, who, though in humble circumstances, possesses a capital knowledge of the fossils of the district, and the localities where they may at once be found. He is willing at all times, so far as his duties permit, to become the pioneer of geological visitors at Builth, and will, for a suitable consideration, forward specimens to correspondents. Several amateurs of high standing, as well as professors, have availed themselves of his knowledge to the enriching of their collections. Within the last twelve months I have received from him some excellent specimens of Trilobites (Ogygia Buchii, Ampyx nudus, Trinucleus concentricus, etc.), also specimens of Didymograpsus, Grapiolithus, Rastrites, etc. I make this statement that others wishing to have their collections of Lower Silurian remains added to, may know whither to look for aid.—  —In the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1715, vol. xxix., two teeth of Elephas, probably E. antiquus, are recorded to have been found in the north of Ireland, at Maghery, eight miles from Bulturbet, in digging the foundation of a mill near the side of a small brook that parts the counties of Cavan and Monaghan. They were about 4 feet underground, and about 80 yards from the brook. The bed on which they lay had been laid with ferns, and with that sort of rushes here called "sprits," with which brushes and nut-shells were intermixed. Under this was a stiff blue clay, on which teeth and bones were found. Above this was, first, a mixture of yellow clay; under that a fine white sandy clay, which was next to the bed. The bed was, for the most part, a foot thick, cutting like turf; and in every layer the seed of the rush was as fresh as if new pulled.

In the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1754, vol. xlviii., there is a record of several bones of an elephant found at Leysdown, in the island of Sheppey, by Mr. Jacob, surgeon, of Faversham. Three or four years before, Mr. Jacob had sent the acetabulum of an elephant, which was discovered sticking in the clay which was partly washed away from the cliff, about a mile eastward of the cliffs of Minster. This, with other parts—vertebræ, a thigh-bone 4 feet long, too rotten to be taken up entire—all lay below high-water mark; and as the place soon after became his property by purchase, he then went, attended by some workmen, in search of more relics, and found a tusk 8 feet long and 12 inches in circumference in the middle, besides other bones within 20 feet of those first recorded.