CHAPTER I. 

 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEPOSITS. 



I. Historical. 



Before the years 1866 — 1867 little was known of the forms of 

 life in the Lower Greensand of East-central England. But at that 

 time the "thin and anomalous but highly interesting deposits of 

 Upware and Potton" 1 were found to contain certain gravelly and 

 conglomeratic beds of Phosphatic Nodules in such quantity as to be 

 of commercial value. The work of extracting such nodules and 

 their manufacture into agricultural manure was already an indus- 

 try of considerable extent in the pebble bed above the gault 

 (Cambridge Greensand) in the immediate vicinity of Cambridge, 

 and the same work was soon established, and energetically carried 

 on for some three or four years in the newly found Lower Green- 

 sand 'coprolite' beds beneath the gault at Upware. 



These workings furnished to Palaeontologists unusually good 

 opportunities for the collecting of fossils, in a district which had 

 hitherto been conspicuous for its barrenness in organic remains. 

 Large collections were therefore gathered together, especially by 

 the Woodwardian Museum, by Mr J. F. Walker of Sidney Sussex 

 College and Mr E. P. Earwaker of St John's College. Many of the 

 specimens were found by the collectors themselves upon the pre- 



1 Upware is a small village on the river Cam, about 10 miles from Cambridge 

 and 5 miles from Waterbeach. It is in the parish of Wicken, and the two names 

 Upware and Wicken have both been used, synonymously, in descriptions of this bed. 

 There is a convenient inn, with the sign "Five miles from anywhere. No hurry!" 



K. 1 



