34 Mr. Bakewell's Facts and Observations relating to the 



deserve attention, in reference to certain opinions that have 

 been recently advanced in geology ; and it may serve to prove 

 how extremely cautious we should be in drawing general in- 

 ductions from isolated facts. During a visit to Nottingham 

 in the last summer, a medical gentleman in that town brought 

 me part of a bone which was pronounced by an eminent phy- 

 siologist to be a portion of the femoral bone of a horse or an 

 ox. This bone was found in forming an excavation in the 

 sand-rock on which Nottingham and its Castle stand ; it was 

 about forty feet below the surface; and the workmen who found 

 it asserted most confidently, that the rock in which it was im- 

 bedded was solid, and that there was no fissure or opening near 

 the place. The sand-rock of Nottingham contains numerous 

 rounded pebbles of quartz, quartz-rock, jasper, and Lydian 

 stone, and occasionally pebbles of granite, slate, and porphy- 

 ry: its first aspect presents the appearance of an alluvial or 

 diluvial formation, and this resemblance is further increased 

 by the soft incoherent state of some of the beds. It may how- 

 ever be proved to be a member of the new red sandstone; for 

 some of the yellowish beds abounding with pebbles alternate 

 with well characterized red sandstone; the whole may be 

 seen passing under the red marl with gypsum, on the north 

 and east side of Nottingham ; and as this marl passes under 

 the lias on the south, the true position of the Nottingham 

 sand-rock in the series of British strata is most clearly esta- 

 blished. As the occurrence of the remains of a large mam- 

 miferous quadruped, in a bed of such great relative antiquity, 

 was a fact at variance with what had hitherto been known, 

 I was persuaded there was some error in the statement, 

 and particularly as I observed, where a section was making in 

 the rock west of the town, there were many deep vertical fis- 

 sures in it, filled with loose sand; this was the case also in 

 other situations where the bare rock was exposed to view. To 

 confirm or invalidate the truth of the workmen's assertion, 

 the excavation was carefully examined with lights, and a break 

 or fissure was discovered through which the bone was doubt- 

 less introduced, though the fissure was now closed with loose 

 sand. 



Thus this apparent geological anomaly was clearly ex- 

 plained, and many anomalous facts of a similar kind that have 

 been described, would I doubt not admit of a solution equally 

 satisfactory if the circumstances were accurately examined. 



Mr. Lyell, in his very ingenious and elaborate " attempt to 

 explain the former changes on the earth's surface by a re- 

 ference to causes now in operation," has stated " that the oc- 

 currence of one individual of the higher classes of mammalia, 



whether 



