50 RAMBLES BOUND FOLKESTONE. 



rock, unless you turn your attention to the blocks of 

 sandstone or chalk, in \vhich, however you would 

 find few fossils. A good broad-bladed knife, stout, 

 but flexible, is the required weapon. It is useless to 

 try to get out any fossil by itself, separate from its 

 clay bed ; it will undoubtedly fall to pieces during the 

 process. Whenever you see the brilliant nacreous 

 shell, or a portion of one, jutting up above the clay, 

 remove as much from it on the upper surface and at 

 the sides as will display its shape and characters 

 sufficiently ; then dig it out with a block of the clay 

 itself attached, on which it shall remain as if you 

 had intentionally mounted it, shape the block care- 

 fully with your knife (best done after you get home), 

 and leave a thickness of half or three quarters of an 

 inch according to the size of your fossil. This will 

 gradually harden, and in time will be like a little 

 block of stone. The shell itself and likewise the clay 

 will be all the better for two or three coatings of thin 

 gum put on at intervals. If these directions are 

 followed out I think you will find your specimens 

 last for years, and preserve much of their beauty. 

 But once again, do not try to get them detached 

 from their matrix. Of course you will find plenty of 

 detached specimens rolling about in the bay, and 

 probably a few good ones, but there Nature herself 

 has performed the work for you take advantage 

 of it. 



Neither will it be of any use to work in the dry 

 clay above high water mark, sorely tempted as you 

 may be to do so by the sunlight reflected from a 

 dozen glittering fragments of embedded shells. No 

 specimens can be extracted therefrom otherwise than 



