2 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEPOSITS. 



pared heaps of Phosphatic nodules or rejected rubbish, but the 

 great majority were saved by the workpeople whose attention was 

 directed to the " curiosities," and their interest maintained by the 

 usual stimulus. 



After the year 1868, the work gradually slackened and was 

 soon almost entirely discontinued ; but some new workings having 

 been opened near Upware last year the sections are now (Aug. 

 1879) again well exposed to view. 



The Potton deposit did not prove to be very rich in native 

 forms of life but contained much the same kinds of fossil remains 

 as are commonly found upon our present sea beaches (Folkestone 

 for example), that is to say, a large quantity of pebbles and rolled 

 fossils that have been washed down out of the neighbouring cliffs; 

 a few shells which lived upon the spot; and the bones, mostly 

 water-worn, of the vertebrated animals which lived upon the 

 neighbouring lands. 



But at Upware, owing perhaps 'to quieter waters and also to 

 the calcareous nature of the shore line, or reef, of coral rag, a 

 much richer aquatic fauna flourished, the study of whose remains 

 has furnished the principal part of the work of the following pages. 

 In the year 1875, some new phosphatic workings, in beds of 

 the same general character as at Upware, were opened out near 

 the village of Little Brickhill, about 2 miles east of Bletchley 1 . 

 These workings were described by me in a paper published in the 

 Geological Magazine of that year (p. 372), and I have nothing to 

 add to the stratigraphical details of that section; our knowledge 

 of its fauna has however largely increased since then, so that the 

 Brickhill bed is now second only to Upware and Farringdon in its 

 organic richness. Some of the rarer fossils from this place were got 

 from certain calcareous nodular masses which occur scattered 

 through the sands, but most of them were obtained in the usual 

 way here, namely from the workmen, who find and preserve the 

 fossils in the course of their employment of digging and sifting 

 out the 'coprolites' from their sandy matrix; also from the women 

 and children who are engaged as 'pickers' to weed out all the 

 stony rubbish (quartz, Lydian stone, chert, &c.) from the true phos- 

 phatic pebbles before it is ready for the market. 



1 The nodules were found here first by Mr J. J. Harris Teall, of St John's 

 College 



