1822.] On some Vegetable Remaim found near Bath 36 



Article VII. 



Account of some Vegetable Remains found in a Qiiarry near Bathi 

 By Mr. H. Woods. 



(To the Editor of the Annals of PJiilosophi/.) 



SIR, North Parade, Bath, Oct. 182h 



Searching for extraneous fossils in a quarry of white and 

 blue has at Tiverton in the neighbourhood of Bath, I discovered 

 some wood in different changes of petrifaction, the appearance 

 and situation of which I will proceed to describe as relevant to 

 a question which I intend ultimately to ask respecting it. 



The quarry consists of, first> a very thin stratum of vegetable 

 mould ; secondly, broken pieces of stone in various states of 

 decomposition ; thirdly, the first bed of white lias, about two 

 feet thick, which, with its substratum of clay, contains a great 

 quantity of cornua ammonis, gryphoid oysters, and several 

 species of anomia ; fourthly, the second bed, six or eight feet 

 thick, partly blue, with its corresponding stratum of clay upon 

 which it rests, containing but few cornua ammonis, but so 

 numerous are its venuses, muscles, and gryphoid oysters, parti* 

 cularly the latter, that it may be said almost to consist of these 

 reliqiuse of shells, agglutinated by media of sand and clay (in its 

 clay I found a small piece of compact iron ore, and several tro- 

 chitae of the stem of the pentacrinite) ; and, fifthly, the third 

 bed, which is also a mixture of white and blue stone, but with 

 an excess of the latter, containing few petrifactions. In one 

 part, I was told by the quarrymen, a considerable quantity of 

 mundic or pyrites was occasionally found, and from the fissures 

 of the stones, in addition to some small and, in most instances, 

 imperfectly formed crystals of carbonate of lime, I picked out 

 clay, smooth, compact, and perfectly unmixed with any other 

 substance. 



I have here described the quarry, which is, as far as it is 

 worked, about 20 feet in depth, as 1 saw it, mentioning only the 

 fossil remains which I observed and collected ; but, in addition 

 to these, the Rev. J. Townsend (in his " Character of Moses, 

 Sec"), enumerates various species of cardia, sacculi, helices, 

 mytili, myae, &c. but particularly sihquastra, and whole jaws of 

 some amphibious animal. To his work I, therefore, refer for a 

 more complete account of the lias quarries in Somersetshire, and 

 proceed to the immediate subject of this communication. 



As I was returning from the wall of the quarry, among a heap 

 of the blue stones, which had been hewn into a proper size and 

 shape for paving, I observed in one a cavity about four inches 

 broad, and eight or ten in length, lined with an incrustation of 

 very small brown crystals. Along this cavity, partially attached, 



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