Queries and Answers. 38 1 



efficient to prevent the Decomposition of these interesting Fossils ? 

 — Will they also have the kindness to give me some informa- 

 tion respecting 



The Nature of the Trees and Plants to which these numerous 

 Fruits and Berries are supposed to have belonged P — No less 

 than 700 specimens of different fruits and . ligneous seed 

 vessels, according to Conybeare (Outlines of Geology of Eng- 

 land and Wales, p. 29. ), none of which agree with any now 

 known, have been procured by Mr. Crowe of Faversham ; 

 but of what nature these plants were, none of the works I pos- 

 sess on geology give any intelligence ; save that Lyell mentions 

 (Principles of Geology, vol. iv. p. 159.), that some of them 

 resemble the cocoa-nut, and other spices of tropical regions ; 

 and we may naturally infer, from the bones of the crocodiles, 

 the turtles, and large Nautili found in the London clay, of 

 which the Isle of Sheppey is composed, that they must have 

 resembled some of the genera now inhabiting warm climates. 

 Before dropping my pen, I have two more queries to put 

 respecting this island. 



WJiat is done with the immense Quantities of Pyrites collected 

 by the Women and Children on the Beach, which is shipped off, 

 they told me, to Lo?idon ? — Before visiting the Isle of Sheppey, 

 I had always imagined iron pyrites to be a substance wholly 

 useless. 



Whence is the green-coloured calcareous Spar, sometimes more 

 than a Quarter of an Inch thick, so commonly found on splitting 

 open the ovate-shaped Nodules, or Septaria # as they are more 

 properly called, of the hard blue-coloured argillaceous Limestone 

 (from which, when ground down into Powder, that excellent Mate- 

 rial for Building and Stucco, called Parker's Cement, is made), 

 found in the London Clay of Sheppey, derived? 



Before leaving the Isle of Sheppey, I cannot refrain from 

 directing the attention of your readers to a statement in LyelPs 

 celebrated Principles of Geology, which appears to me, with 

 all due deference to so high an authority, very greatly ex- 

 aggerated. " The church at Minster, now near the coast, is 

 said to have been in the middle of the island fifty years ago ; 

 and it has been conjectured that, at the present rate of destruc- 

 tion, the whole isle will be annihilated in about half a cen- 

 tury." (Vol. i. p. 407.) Now, I was at Minster only a week 

 ago ; and I beg to assure your readers, that it is still a good 

 mile and a quarter from the sea ; so that, supposing Mr. Lyell's 

 measurement of this island (which he states to be about six 

 miles long by four in breadth) to be exact, this part has lost 



* Septaria (derivation : septa, enclosures), flattened balls of stone, which, 

 on being split, are seen to be separated in their interior in irregular masses. 



