VOL. XXII.]] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 54g 



into flower, and after being dried in the sun, are rubbed into a powder and 

 infused in hot water after the manner of tea. 



Observations on the Fossils of Reculver Cliff, and a New JVay of Dr airing the 



Meridian Line. By Mr. Stephen Gray. JJlth a Note on this Letter by the 



Editor. N° 268, p. 762. 



I was extremely satisfied with the account which Mr. De la Pryme gave of 

 his observations on the shells in the quarries near Broughton. To the many 

 instances the earth exhibits of the great and violent mutations she has suffered, 

 be pleased to take a remarkable one of those I have observed in Kent. About 

 half a mile from Reculver, towards Herm, there appears in the cliff a stratum 

 of shells in a greenish sand ; they seem to be firm, and some of them are 

 entire, but when you attempt to take them from their beds, they crumble to 

 powder between your fingers; the shells are of the white conchites. But what 

 is most retnarkable is, that in the lower part of the stratum, where the shells 

 lie thickest, there are saittered up and down portions of trunks, roots, and 

 branches of trees. The wood is become as black as coal, and so rotten, that 

 large pieces of it are easily broken with the fingers. I know not at what depth 

 these may lie, the surface of the stratum not appearing above 2 feet from the 

 beach, but I judge it from the superficies or top of the clifF about 12 feet. The 

 stump of one tree standing upright was broken of^" about a foot from the ground. 



New JVay to Draw a Meridian Line. — I have lately thought of a new contrived 

 instrument for drawing a meridian line, which, for any thing I know to the 

 contrary, is my own ; it is easy in its use, and sufficiently exact. Take the 

 gnomon of a horizontal dial for the latitude of the place, and to the hypothe- 

 nuse fix two sights, whose centres may be parallel to the same ; let the eye- 

 sight be a small hole, but the diameter of the other must be equal to the tan- 

 gent of the double distance of the north star from the pole, the distance of 

 the sights being made radius ; let the stile be rivetted to the end of a straight 

 ruler ; then when you would make use of it, lay the ruler on a horizontal plane, 

 so that the end to which the stile is fixed may over-hang, and look through the 

 eye-sight, moving the instrument till you see the north star appears to touch 

 the circumference of the hole in the other sight, on the same hand with the 

 girdle of Cassiopea, or on the opposite side to that wliereoil is the star in the 

 Great Bear's Rump at that time ; then draw a line by the edge of the ruler, 

 and it will be a true meridian line, as it is very easy to demonstrate. 



A Note on this Letter by the Editor Dr. Shane. — It is very likely that the black 

 wood above-mentioned is oak, which has lain so long as to be turned of that 

 colour, by the vitriolic juices of the earth, as galls and a solution, of vitriol do. 



