FOSSIL FRUITS OF THE ISLE OF SHEPPEY. 187 
even when preserved in the cabinet.* The nodular masses 
of indurated clay, termed septaria, contain the best pre- 
served and most durable fossils. The fossil fruits, or car- 
polithes, occur in such profusion, that a large collection can 
easily be made ; they comprise several hundred species, few 
of which have been scientifically investigated.t 
Mr. Parkinson has given admirable figures of several of 
the Sheppey fruits, particularly of the large palm-like nuts, 
called “ petrified figs.” (Org. Rem. vol. i. pl. vi. vii. Pret. 
Atlas, pl. vi. vii.) M. Ad. Brongniart has named several in 
his Prodrome ; but without figures the descriptions are 
useless to the student. Mr. Bowerbank has published two 
numbers of a work entitled, “ History of the Fossil Fruits of 
the London Clay,” with seventeen plates ; from which I have 
selected a few subjects for illustration. The fruits described 
are the following : 
1. Fruits having a downy structure, like the Cotton plant. 
2. Cucumites. Seeds of plants of the cucumber family. 
Lign. 63, fig. | and 3. These fossil fruits so closely 
resemble the seeds of various members of the recent 
genus Cucumis, or Cucumber, comprising the Gourd, 
Water-melon, &c., both in outward form and internal 
structure, that there is no reasonable doubt of their 
belonging to plants of the same family; hence the 
name Cucumites or fossil cucumbers. 
3. Cones of a tree allied to the genus Petrophila, of New 
Holland. ign. 63, fig. 2 and 8. 
* Mr. Bowerbank, who possesses an unrivalled collection of these 
fruits, keeps them in stopper-bottles filled with water, placing the 
different species separately, and labelling the phials. I have succes- 
fully employed mastic varnish, first wiping the specimens dry, and 
removing any saline efllorescence by means of raw cotton, and then 
brushing in the varnish with a stiff hair-pencil. 
+ See vol. ii. Excursion to the Isle of Sheppey. 
