284 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 706. 



oily matter, which I suppose was the cause that I could discover so few salts to 

 be coagulated, and those that were there were very few, and that are hardly 

 worth naming, of the figure of those found in wine-vinegar. 



Account of River and other Shells, with various Vegetable Bodies, found under'- 

 ground. By the Rev. Mr. Morton, A. M. and F.R.S. N° 303, p. 2210. 



On digging a moorish pasture, in Mears-Ashby field, in Northamptonshire, 

 we found a vast number of snail shells of various kinds. At about a foot deep 

 they lay very thick; and digging downwards the number rather increased till we 

 came to the depth of about three feet. It was troublesome to sink deeper on 

 purpOise; but we made trials for a considerable extent of ground, viz. about 

 260 feet in length, and 130 in breadth. Besides, the same shells were thrown 

 up in several places by the moles. What we principally observed in this search 

 was, 1 . A moist moorish black earth, in some places a foot and a half, in others 

 somewhat above two feet in thickness. The lower half of it is blacker and 

 denser than the upper, is of a bituminous nature, and has all the characters of 

 peat earth. Besides shells, we found stalks and leaves of grass, and also of 

 many other vegetables reposited, as usual, in like bituminous moors. 2. White 

 earth; so at first we called it: but on closer inspection, it appeared to be little 

 more than hay half wasted. So deep as we sunk into it, we found it every 

 where copiously interspersed with shells. 



The fossil shells were, some the exuviae of land-snails; the rest of river or 

 freshwater-snails: of the former there were the three following kinds. l.A 

 small buccinum of five wreaths, the buccinum exiguum quinque anfractuum, 

 tit. 7. List, in tractat. de Cochleis Terrestr. Angl. A kind observed by Dr. Lister 

 to live in moss upon old garden walls, at Estrope in Lincolnshire; by myself, 

 at the mossy roots of old trees in many of the Northamptonshire woods, as 

 also among moss on the boggy sides of several standing springs. 2. A cochlea 

 of the compressed kind, but not so much compressed as some of them are. It 

 has five wreaths, and a small circular sinus in the centre. This, if it is not the 

 cochlea umbilicata, &c. N. 79, List. Hist. Conchyl. lib. 1, has not hitherto been 

 mentioned by any writer; though common enough in the woods in Northamp- 

 tonshire: I found a greater number of them, for the compass of ground, in- 

 closed in the earth, than ever I have done in any of the places where they 

 naturally breed. 3. The cochlea citrina tit. 3. List, de Cochl. Terrest. Ang. 

 The common striped snail-shell. But most &f these in the moor are white, of 

 the colour of the shells that have been a long time dead. In some I saw faint 

 traces of their former stripes. Most of the shells of this kind were lodged 

 about 4 feet deep. 



