HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-G OSSIF. 



19 



been covered with leaves spirally arranged. Some 

 fragments show scars arranged irregularly on the 

 surface ; probably these are fragments of roots. The 

 plant seems to some extent to combine the characters 

 of Stigmaria, Sigillaria, and Lepidodendron. Further 

 details of the appearance of the specimens were given. 

 For one which appears to differ from all hitherto 

 described he proposes the name of Berzvynia Car- 

 ritthersii. 



English Equivalents of Alpine Strata. — I 

 should be obliged if any one would inform me of the 

 English equivalents of the horizons treated of in Von 

 llauen, " Cephalopoden der Nordostl. Alpen." If the 

 Lias — what zones or what relative beds ? — E. A. \V. 



How TO GET FORAMINIFERA FROM ChA1,K. — 



Noticing an inquiry on the part of a correspondent 

 as to the best method of washing foraminifera from 

 chalk, diatoms from clays, &c., I thought that a 

 description of a process by means of which I have 

 obtained some splendid washings from the chalk of 

 this locality, might be welcome on account of its 

 simplicity. The apparatus consisted of two ordinary 

 medicine bottles and about 18 inches of small india- 

 rubber tubing such as can be purchased at any 

 chemist's. First procure a piece of soft chalk, the 

 softer the better, and that which has been partially 

 broken up by the action of the weather is better still. 

 Scrape this with a knife to a fine powder, and put in 

 one of the bottles which should not be more than 

 about I'j full ; then fill up the bottle % full of water 

 and shake vigorously and repeatedly ; allow this to 

 stand for some time, and then draw off the milky fluid 

 with the siphon — do this again and again until when 

 shaken up the bottle appears as it were no longer full 

 of a milky fluid, but, when placed close to the eye 

 against a bright light, of small separate grains diffused 

 in the water. These are the treasures we are in 

 search of, but they have next to be separated from 

 the larger fragments of chalk which have not been 

 disintegrated by the scraping and shaking. To do 

 this shake up the bottle, and with the siphon im- 

 mediately draw over water and foraminifera into the 

 second bottle ; thus a certain portion of shells to- 

 gether with nearly all the water is drawn over, allow 

 these to settle, then draw off the clear water and 

 repeat the process until all or nearly all the shells are 

 in the second bottle, leaving the lumps, &c., in the 

 first, then filter on to blotting paper and dry in an 

 oven when they will be ready for mounting. I reckon 

 about one pill-box full of foraminifera to a washing 

 and store them dry ; to mount, boil in a test-tube with 

 turpentine and mount in balsam. While my pen is 

 in my hand I may as well mention that the prepara- 

 tion sold as Stephen's Silicon in shilling boxes for 

 cleaning jewelry is really a perfectly clean diatoma- 

 ceous deposit ready for immediate mounting. Could 

 any of the readers of SciENCE-GossiP tell me the 



names of the forms and the locality, as it makes a 

 capital object ? If your correspondent cares to 

 communicate with me at the Grammar School, 

 Maidstone, I shall be happy to forward him a small 

 enclosure of washed chalk foraminifera. — Frederick F. 

 Grcnsted. 



A PROBABLE Marine Shell from Erith. — In 

 a sample of lower brick-earth kindly sent me a few 

 years ago by Mr. R. W. Cheadle, I discovered two 

 small shells with the columella very much produced. 

 These were recognised by Mr. G. B. Sowerby as 

 "Fry of Fusus." Now this is somewhat curious, 

 seeing that all the shells heretofore found in the 

 brick-earth have been land or freshwater species, 

 while the genus Fusus is truly marine and compara- 

 tively speaking a deep-sea one, the common F. 

 Islandkus ranging from five to eighty fathoms. Any 

 indication of marine life in the Thames Valley might 

 be looked for in such shells as Cardinm ediik, or 

 Scorbkularia perforata, but no such estuarine shells 

 have yet been discovered at Erith or Grays, although 

 the Cyrena, so abundant in the brick-earth, appears 

 in some cases to have had its habitat so near to salt 

 water, that freshets carried it into marine deposits, as 

 its association with the marine Mollusca of the gravels 

 of Kilsea Hill, Yorkshire, proves. After the appear- 

 ance of a short notice I sent to the " Bayswater 

 Chronicle," a gentleman well versed in post-tertiary 

 shells, gave it as his decided opinion that the two 

 shells were not Fusus at all, but probably apices of 

 some other shell. Now in this opinion I cannot agree, 

 as I have carefully compared them with figures and 

 specimens of Fusus, and I find their apices are exactly 

 like that of Fusus, and I also find that no other genus 

 of shells that I am acquainted with has these apices. 

 If not really of the brick-earth age (which their con- 

 dition seems to denote) they may have been derived 

 from Eocene beds, seeing that such shells mostly 

 derived from Woolwich beds frequently occur in the 

 brick-earth ; but I think the matter requires further 

 investigation. — //. \V. Kidd, Godalming. 



The Sea-Lily, Pentacrinus. — At a recent 

 meeting of the Microscopical Society of Liverpool, a 

 paper on this subject was read by the Rev. H. H. 

 Higgins. He said the meridian of the sea-lilies, 

 Pentacrini, seems to have been reached in the seas of 

 the moimtain limestone, where they covered thousands 

 of square miles, and became constituents of sedimen- 

 tary rocks many hundreds of feet in thickness. Their 

 extreme beauty and complexity of structure, is 

 attained by natural selection, points to a pedigree of 

 immeasurable antiquity, concerning which nothing is 

 known. The sea-lilies have been placed near the 

 polypes, but the latter are radiate in type, the forme 

 are annuloid : the latter have a good canal open to, 

 or constituting, the body cavity ; the former have a 

 distinct good canal with oral and anal apertures : the 



