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tradistinction to being sere stones. The chloritic marl of Cambridge- 
shire contained true Coprolites, though they were of infrequent 
occurrence, and Coprolites were not confined to the Lyme Regis 
deposit, but were found in other formations, both of older and more 
recent date. Of this there was no reasonable doubt among geologists. 
Mr. Sewell had advanced nothing to confute, but rather to confirm, 
his views. 
It had been pointed out by Bischoff that, while apatite dissolved in 
over 300,000 parts of water, phosphate of lime, derived from animal 
matter, dissolved in from 2,823 to 4,610 parts of water. It was also 
shown by the same authority that the excreta of animals and bones 
yielded from 23 to 60 per cent. of phosphate of lime. He considered, 
therefore, the organic origin was more feasible than the mineral and 
purely chemical. As regarded the absence of corrugations, it should 
be recollected that those in dispute had been washed out of an older 
formation, and had been, like all the fossils associated with them, 
eroded ; whereas the Lyme Regis ones were found zz sd¢z. 
The President (Mr. ScoTT) urged that Mr. Sewell had yielded the 
whole question, for all that was advanced by himself and Mr. Wonfor 
was, that, while Coprolites strictly meant fossilized foeces, yet the term 
had, almost by general consent, been so extended that it included all 
fossilized animal matter, and that the phosphatic nodules, even when 
not Coprolites in the strict sense, were yet included under the general 
term coprolitic. In this sense it was used by the Geological Society. 
True coprolites were found in various formations, but retained their 
form best in the soft lias, because of very favourable conditions. 
Coprolites of fish from the coal shale in the neighbourhood of Edin- 
burgh had been found in great numbers. In the Brighton Museum 
were three iron-clay nodules, brought by Mr. T. Davidson from 
Scotland, and each enclosed an undoubted Coprolite of a 
voracious fish. These had been washed out by the tide from 
the shale beds of the coal formation. They had been shown to 
Professor King, of Queen’s University, and he expressed an opinion, 
not only that they were true Coprolites, but that it was a narrow- 
minded view to question their existence in such a bed as that at 
Cambridge, because of the fact that the associated bones of reptiles 
had been derived from an older formation, for if the bones had been 
so derived, why might not the Coprolites? Without mentioning all the 
formations in which the Coprolites had been found, Kent’s Cavern 
yearly gave them in Mr. Pengelly’s reports, while Mr. Davidson’s . 
recent additions to the Museum of his fine collection from the Paris 
