8 



The spiral shells are casts and minute Cerithia and Nerineoz. 



Chambered shells ( Cephalopoda) are extremely rare in Great Oolite 

 generally, no Belemnites have yet been found, and only one minute 

 fragment of an ammonite. 



The remains of Vertebrate animals belong exclusively to the cold- 

 blooded classes, for although small Insectivorous and Marsupial 

 quadrupeds had undoubtedly existed at the period of the deposition 

 of the Stonesfield state, no teeth or remains have been detected 

 hitherto in the Bradford clay. 



The skeletons of fishes, especially the sharks, contain so little of 

 the carbonate and phosphate of lime that only the harder portions of 

 their skeletons — the teeth and enamelled scales are usually found in 

 a fossil state. The College collections contains numerous forms of 

 crushing teeth, or " palates," of extinct species allied to the Port 

 Jackson shark, which lives upon shell fish and crustaceans ; there are 

 also sharp-pointed teeth of other sharks, and the mandibles of a 

 Chimaeroid fishes. — (Ischyodus Egerton.) 



Reptiles. — I have obtained the teeth of several species of the large 

 carnivorous saurians, (Plesio and Ichthyosauri J, and there are small 

 sculptured plates and fragments of bones, which, I believe, belong to 

 some small marine turtle. 



The collection contains also a suite of specimens from Bradford, 

 presented by the Rev. "W. Dansey, of Donhead St. Andrew, and 

 Mr. Joshua Brown. 



In conclusion, I wish to remark, that although it may answer no 

 agricultural or other economic purpose to examine minutely into all 

 such details as the preceding, yet it may be useful to the engineer 

 and the farmer to possess as much knowledge of the characteristic 

 fossils of the British strata, as will enable him to pronounce with 

 certainty the geological relations of any particular stratum in which 

 he may be more immediately interested, and it requires no unusual 

 industry or intelligence to learn the physiogomy of a few shells, 

 such as will serve this purpose. "Whatever system of farming, and 

 whatever practices are found beneficial on the College Farm, will be 

 equally successful wherever the Forest-marble and Bradford clay are 

 met with, and as a means of identifying these strata, I know of no 

 method more simple and more certain than the examination of the 

 fossils which are so plentifully distributed in them. Those only who 

 have attempted to generalize the observations made in a particular 

 district by means of geological laws, are in a position to appreciate 

 the usefulness of such enquiries ; but to the natural historian they 

 have an attraction independent from question of utility ; he does 

 not look upon this deposit as so many feet of clay merely, but sees 

 in it a historical monument of times long ere man became the tenant 

 of the globe ; when the care of Providence was bestowed as lavishly, 

 as in our own day, upon numerous races of unreasoning creatures, until 

 the earth was fully prepared for its last and noblest inhabitant, to 

 whom should be given, not merely a vegetative or animal existence, 

 but intellectual and spiritual life. 



