334 president's address. 



is of considerable interest, and sufficiently attests that, tliotrgb 

 much has been done of late years to obtain specimens from this 

 formation, it is not yet exhausted, and that it still contains 

 treasures to reward the diligent collector. 



Whilst on this subject, I would suggest to the fossil-hunting 

 members of the Club, the probability oi pearls being occasionally 

 found among fossil shells. There is no reason why they should 

 not be preserved, as well as the shells which produce them, for I 

 believe they are not more destructible. Of course, they must 

 always have been, as they now are, rather scarce, especially pearls 

 of the large size and perfect shape of this one which I exhibit, 

 and which, had it retained its pristine beauty, would have been 

 of very great value. This pearl was found in one of the tertiary 

 beds of Suffolk — in the Eed crag near Felixstow, at which place, 

 as well as in other parts of the county of Suffolk, there are beds 

 containing large quanities of what were at first supposed to be 

 coprolites, but which are now generally regarded as phosphate 

 nodules. These nodules have now become very valuable, fur- 

 nishing as they do, when reduced to powder, a manure not much 

 inferior to guano, I believe, for some crops, in the estimation 

 of agriculturists. 



This is, I believe, the first well-authenticated instance c(f the 

 discovery of a fossil pearl ; but I have since seen, in collections 

 of crag fossils, much smaller objects, which had puzzled collectors* 

 but which, I believe, also to be pearls. 



It has also been suggested, that pearls should have been found 

 in the excavations made in Nineveh, and other places in the East, 

 had they not been very perishable, I think this is a mistake- 

 that they are not more perishable than the shells which have been 

 found in those excavations, but that having, by age, lost all their 

 peculiar nacreous beauty, would be passed over ; though now, 

 perhaps, if attention were drawn to it, they might yet be disco- 

 vered ; and I would suggest that any friends of Mr. Loftus, or of 

 any of the other gentlemen now employed in excavations in the 

 ancient cities of the East, should mention this matter to them. 



We have, as usual, some additions to our Insect Fauna to 

 record. Mr. Thomas John Bold has taken — 



