HA RD WICKE'S S CIENCE- G SSIP. 



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few good Productus striaius occasionally occurred on 

 window-sills and over porches. Many good things 

 were got when the new line between Settle and 

 Carlisle was being constructed. The quarries scarcely 

 repay a visit to the chance collector. The richer 

 beds are not always worked, and the quarrymen do 

 not seem to have much to offer. Fish remains, I 

 was told, occur in the Dent marbles, a few miles 

 further up the line, but I am not aware of any verte- 

 brate remains having been found in the carboniferous 

 limestones of the immediate vicinity. 



The next halting-place was Dudley. The fossils, 

 with which every paleontologist is familiar, are got 

 at two places, the Wren's Nest and the Castle ; 

 neither place is far from the town. I spent a day at 

 the Wren's Nest, but hadn't time to visit the Castle. 

 The beds I saw were tilted at a sharp angle, and 

 good weathered fossils are to be found in the debris 

 at their base. The beds themselves are so crowded 

 with organic remains that they offer the finest study 

 possible of an important part of the world's ancient 

 life. These remains, however, are not easy to 

 transfer to the collecting-bag, and the geologist must 

 betake himself to the various places where the softer 

 shales have become disintegrated, and have yielded 

 up a part of their fossil contents. His first feeling 

 will be one of disappointment, even here, where he 

 is aware of an enormous profusion of organisms, and, 

 indeed, if his object be merely to secure fine cabinet- 

 specimens, his disappointment will be keen ; good 

 trilobites and shells are not easily to be picked up, 

 but if his object be of a more purely scientific kind, 

 especially if he has learnt to feel much interest in the 

 lower forms of animal life, he will not be dissatisfied 

 with his gatherings. Novelties are, of course, not 

 easy to find in a locality so long and often wrought 

 as Dudley ; but it appeared to me very probable, 

 from the almost inexhaustible abundance of material 

 to work upon, that something might even yet be 

 obtained, especially in groups that have not yet 

 received their full share of attention, as corals, poly- 

 zoa, sponges, &c. A week's good work would 

 probably yield some interesting results. Atrypa 

 reticularis seems to be the commonest fossil, and I 

 mention it because I found the mineralisation ex- 

 ceedingly favourable to the preservation of the spires. 

 Out of a handful thrown into acid, a large percentage 

 yielded the desired result. If one is at all anxious 

 to know whence all the good museum specimens have 

 come, and makes inquiry, he finds that there is 

 a band of men who make a business of collecting. 

 They get good fossils still, and an old man, in 

 particular, had quite recently made several valuable 

 finds. It is hopeless to attempt to compete with 

 such men, and the visitor who has thought of getting 

 them for himself had better give up the idea, and 

 make for the nearest dealer's shop. There are two 

 semi-professional dealers at Dudley, a druggist, Mr. 

 Hollier, and a herbalist, Mr. Fletcher. I only saw 



a few of Mr. Hollier's things, but Mr. Fletcher 

 obligingly showed me what he had. He has some 

 good trilobites, but seemed unwilling to part with 

 them. I was told that there was a museum at the 

 Mechanics' Institute, but it was too late to see it. 

 The museum which was before it in date has become 

 defunct, and its collection is scattered. 



The neighbourhood of Bristol is perhaps as good a 

 one for the paleontologist as any in the kingdom. 

 Several horizons are well represented, and many of 

 the best localities are easily accessible. I began work 

 upon the inferior Oolite at Dundry. To give an idea 

 of the richness of this locality, it may be mentioned 

 that the quarry is exceedingly small, being used 

 simply to obtain road-metal from, but that out of it 

 have come an enormous number of genera and species, 

 of which specimens occur in almost every museum and 

 private cabinet in the country. At the Bristol Museum 

 I counted from this locality 226 species distributed 

 amongst 67 genera, but a complete list of what it has 

 yielded would give a much higher figure. This great 

 abundance of organic remains was a treat to one 

 coming from the comparatively sterile horizons of 

 Mid-Lothian. 



The chief excavation is near the top and on the 

 north side of Dundry-hill, close to the main road 

 leading from Bristol to Dundry, and is two or three 

 miles distant from the city. A little way down on 

 the south side is another and smaller quarry, which I 

 found rich in corals and large Rhynchoncllas, It is of 

 no use visiting the north quarry unless the workmen 

 have been getting out some road-material ; this they 

 get in rather large fragments, and for a small fee will 

 allow the visitor to set to work upon them, and 

 gather for himself what he can. In breaking up the 

 blocks for their own purposes, they put aside the 

 better specimens themselves, and generally have some 

 for sale. The sellers of minerals on the Clifton 

 Downs usually have a few Dundry fossils on their 

 stalls, in addition to a great many very beautiful 

 polished carboniferous corals and sponges, which 

 can be bought at a very cheap rate. 



The well-known Rhcetic beds of Aust gave me 

 occupation for a day. The fish remains occur on the 

 surface of the Avicida contorta shales, and in bluish- 

 grey seams which run irregularly through a coarse, 

 pebbly-looking kind of rock. The beds are exhibited 

 well up on the face of the cliffs, and the collector is 

 dependent upon the crumbling away of the marl 

 beneath for material to work upon. After a high tide 

 with a strong westerly wind is the best time to visit 

 the locality. A good deal of material was strewn 

 about at the time when I was there, and a star-fish 

 and Ilybodus remains rewarded my search. To 

 extract good reptilian or fish remains the collector 

 must prepare himself for hard work, as the matrix is 

 very intractable, but with patience, and a heavy 

 hammer and sharp chisel, he will assuredly meet with 

 good success. Ichthyologists have lamented that 



