HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



181 



crag phosphates of Suffolk, are scarcely less in- 

 teresting to geologists than those of the south of 

 France. They occur as nodules often enclosing 

 fossils, but singularly enough, these fossils are never 

 those of the red crag itself, but always those of the 

 much older 'London clay' formation. These crag 

 phosphatic nodules still go by the name of ' copro- 

 lites,' from an antiquated, but erroneous, opinion that 

 they are the fossil excrement of animals. Instead o' 

 this being their origin, however, we know that they 

 represent that portion of phosphorus which has 

 entered into the structures of the soft bodies of those 

 very animals, whose hard parts, bones, shells, &c, 



Fig. 106. — Ananchytes ovata, a common chalk fossil. 



Fig. 107. — Atianchytei ovata, internal flint-cast. 



also occur in the fossil state ; in fact, phosphoretted 

 hydrogen set free from the decomposing bodies of the 

 animals which died in the sea along whose floor the 

 ' London clay ' was deposited ; phosphoric acid, 

 so forming combined with lime, and in this manner 

 the nodules of phosphate of lime were formed 

 by segregation." Another short extract from his 

 'Geology of Ipswich:' "There is every reason to 

 believe that the so-called coprolites or phosphatic 

 nodules, were in reality accumulated on an old 

 exposed land surface of the ' London clay ' before the 

 area was submerged to form the bed of the ' red crag ' 

 sea. Teeth of ' mastodon,' rhinoceros, and deer, are 

 not unfrequently met with associated with bones of 

 older date." 



Fossil wood, bones, teeth, &c, of animals chiefly 

 Cetaceans, are met with in the "crag," these having 

 been re-deposited in the crag beds, after having been 

 washed out of the London clay, in which they were 



originally imbedded. I am indebted to Dr. J. E. 

 Taylor for several specimens of Otodus obliqttus 

 (shark's teeth), as well as the beautiful " Box stone " 

 containing Pentunculus glycimeris. 



The nature of the "Box stones" will be best 

 described in Dr. Taylor's own words : — 



"Very singular," he says, "are the roundish 

 masses of coarse sandstone which are met with at the 

 Foxhall Crag Pit. From Foxhall, the bed containing 

 them, extends to Felixstowe, and heaps of them may 

 be seen by the roadside, waiting to be broken up for 

 road mending. They are very curious as representing 

 a lost formation, older than the ' Coralline Crag,' for 

 they are also found under it, which is probably of late 

 miocene age." It is the quarrymen who have termed 

 them " box stones." You strike them with a sharp 

 blow of the hammer, and about one in every ten, will 

 break in halves, revealing the cast of a fossil shell, &c, 

 within. These " box stones " are the broken up and 

 rolled remains of a bed of sandstone, which once 

 covered this part of Suffolk, and which still underlies. 

 Antwerp, Brussels, and other places in Belgium. 

 This completes the fossils of the crags, and we next 

 visited a very large chalk pit near the village of 

 Bramford, about three miles from Ipswich. It was a 

 very deep cutting, the walls of pure chalk, towering 

 up like hills above our heads. The men were busy 

 burning it for lime. We were not so fortunate as to 

 chalk fossils, but secured a pretty specimen of 

 Ananchytes ovata, an Echinoid of the Cretaceous- 

 period. They are locally termed "Fairy loaves." 

 We found them difficult to dig out of the close, 

 compact mass of chalk, the outside shell is so tender. 

 At the same place I found a completely round ball of 

 flint, and on cracking it in two halves I found enclosed 

 a round ball of pure white chalk, which Dr. Taylor 

 told me, when washed, would be found to be full of 

 " Sponge Spicules." Flint is closely connected with 

 sponge organisms of course, and there are different 

 theories as to what flint itself really is. 



Minnie McKean. 



MY ANTS. 



EARLY in the summer, I secured a nest each of 

 red and black ants, digging each up with 

 plenty of the soil and weeds with it, and placing 

 them in separate large tin dishes, standing in larger 

 tins of water, to prevent the ants escaping. 



An ant's first thought is to protect its young, and on 

 disturbing a nest, they promptly each seize a larva in 

 their mouths and drag it away, and in a surprisingly 

 short time every larva is removed from sight. I 

 once saw an ant which had, by accident, just had its 

 body completely torn off, seize a full-grown larva, as 

 big as itself, and carry it about apparently as easily 

 and as free from pain as if uninjured, although it 



