CHAP. ix. RAISES THE FOSSIL. 103 



next evening. There was no time to deliberate. The 

 tide was nearly up to the stone. 



"I then attempted to lift it whole out of its bed, 

 little thinking, in my ignorance, of the extremely brittle 

 nature of petrified bones. Alas ! the bone broke across ! 

 I gave a gasp, and cried ' Oh !' But I set to work and 

 lifted the rest out, and put the whole in my handker- 

 chief. When I reached home they were a mass of 

 broken debris. I managed, however, to put the bits 

 together again, and of these I send you the plaster 

 cast. 



" What was it ? was it really a Coccosteus, six feet 

 long including the tail ? What do you think I imagined 

 it to be ? Nothing more nor less than a gigantic King 

 Crab ! wanting the tail ; eighteen inches one way and 

 sixteen inches the other. I wandered through Buck- 

 land in vain, and then believed that it was the upper 

 piece of a Trilobite. But the ' Old Eed ' dissipated all 

 these fancies. 



" I have a piece or two of fossil bone that would 

 puzzle Agassiz himself. They shall all be sent you. 

 Whether you engrave any of them or not, you are on no 

 account to return them. They would never see the light 

 with me. 



" I have taken note of what you say, and will endea- 

 vour to comply with your kind suggestions that I should 

 make further searches. ... I have been along the shore 

 once or twice already, and know of a job or two one of 

 them rather promising a bone, as long as my finger, is 

 standing out of an impure bituminous limestone, but 



