102 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



" The nuns of Whitby told 

 How, of the countless snakes, each one 

 Was turned into a coil of stone, 



When holy Hilda prayed. . 

 Themselves within their sacred bound 

 Their stony coils had often found." 



For ages these beautiful fossils have been the 

 objects of superstitious reverence on account of 

 their resemblance to coiled-up serpents and snakes. 

 In Egypt this was especially the case in earlier 

 times. The Brahmins treasured them up in costly 

 caskets and offered sacrifices to them, while the 

 Hindoos also rendered to them a sort of worship. 



Next to Whitby, there is perhaps no place more 

 favourable for the study of Ammonites than Lincoln, 

 and it is there that I first felt the fascination of them. 

 Any one who will take the trouble to visit Swan's 

 brickyard will find a splendid section of Lias sic clay 

 exposed, clearly definable into three of those remark- 

 able zones with which the Liassic deposits have been 

 divided, each one containing its characteristic Am- 

 monite. Just as Europe might be divided into 

 sections each with its own type of man, or as the 

 seashore can be marked out into regions character- 

 ised by different sorts of seaweeds, so the whole of 

 the vast beds that make up the Liassic formation 

 are arranged in divisions or zones, in each of which 

 are types of Ammonites scarcely found elsewhere. 

 In this brickyard, where the Upper Lias is exposed, 

 the three zones visible are those characterised by 

 Ammonites bifrons,A.communis, and A. serpentinus. 



Another pit lies to the south of the river gorge, 

 and formed quite a picturesque foreground to the 



