198 Queries and Answers. 
Marine Vegetables as Articles of Food. (Vol. Il. p. 106.) — Mr. Charlies 
Greaves having called upon botanists to direct their attention to marine vege- 
tables as articles of food, it may be advantageous to point out the amount of 
our present knowledge upon this subject. The kinds as yet generally known to 
be resorted to as articles of diet are but few, viz. U’lva umbilicata, /ucus escu- 
léntus, edulis, and saccharinus, and a species found on the coast of some of 
the islands in the Indian Ocean. Besides these, a second species of Ulva, re- 
sembling a small brown lettuce, and Fucus vesiculosus are converted into 
an inferior kind of food by the poor people on the southern coast of Ireland, 
while those on the western extract a superior and more nutritive kind of 
sustenance from the fronds of the Ficus crispus. The wretched people, 
who are necessitated to have recourse to such coarse and nauseous food as 
the pounded substance of the 'ticus vesiculosus and saccharinus, are neither 
to be envied nor imitated; but the jelly obtained by boiling the Javanese 
plant, and the Fucus crispus, when properly saved and prepared, are not to 
be despised, nor the mess procured by stewing and chopping the U’lva umbi- 
licata, and known by the name of stoke or laver. — 7’. J. 
Preserving A'lge, and collecting Fuci.— 1 shall be glad if some of your 
readers will instruct me as to the best method of preserving the d’lgz, and 
making them retain their colour. I should also be glad to learn what is 
the best month for collecting the different specimens of British /uci, and 
any other information relative to this pleasing pursuit. Is there any work 
upon the subject, with coloured plates, less expensive than the recent splen- 
did production of Mr. Dawson Turner ¥ — C. N. Jan. 14. 1830. 
Limestone Quarries at Ledbury. — Sir, Having received much gratification from the perusal of 
your able correspondent Mr. Jukes’s remarks on the trilobites at Barr and Dudley, and perceiv- 
ing that he expresses (Vol. II. p..233.) a wish for some information relative to the limestone at 
Ledbury in Herefordshire, I took the opportunity of a few days’ residence in the neighbourhood 
to examine the quarries, and beg to enclose the specimens I then obtained, trusting they may 
prove in some degree useful. 
I find that there are two strata of limestone quarried at Ledbury : an upper ferruginous stratum, 
abounding with shells and alcyonia ; and an under, darker, and more compact stratum, of a crys- 
talline nature. It is in the upper limestone bed that the trilobites are principally found, though 
a few have been, and still are, occasionally discovered in the /owe7 stratum; but the principal 
workman there assured me that it was more than two years ago since any perfect ones had been 
found there. I could neither hear nor see any thing of the large trilobite, except the indefinite 
statement, that larger ones than ordinary were very rarely found. I have sent with this letter a 
few specimens of the imperfect trilobites I obtained, with a perfect one of a different species, 
which I trust will be suificient for the purposes of identification. Whether the four specimens 
which I send are the tail part of the A’saphus caudatus or not, I leave you to say; they are cer- 
tainly much broader in proportion to their length than the figure given Vol. IT. p. 43., and some 
are so much so as to give them the appearance of a butterfiy, the name by which they are popu- 
larly known among the workmen. At any rate, this is the trilobite, the lower portions of which 
are found abundantly here, but the upper parts are quite scarce, and I was unable to obtain even 
one. ‘They were formerly more abundant, a workman of the upper stratum informed me, but 
as they are now deeper in the bed, they rarely find them. 
The small trilobite, in transition limestone, which I send herewith, and which, I understand, is 
scarce in the Ledbury quarries, I trust, will prove worthy your attention, as it is nearly, if not 
quite, perfect, and it is extremely simple in its form. This, I believe, is from the under stratum ; 
and I could not hear that any other trilobites were to be found here. I likewise send you a large 
shell from the upper stratum. 
The geology of this part of the country seems at present to be but little understood, though it 
well deserves attention. At the distance of fotir miles the primitive chain of the Malvern Hills litt 
their numerous heads like mountain waves terminating a verdant ocean, and a beautiful vale in- 
tervenes between them and the limestone eminences, which for a considerable distance run paral- 
lel with them. At the north end of the Malvern chain the limestone hills lie grouped apparently 
in much confusion, a chain, however, extending to the nerth, towardsthe Abberley Hills ; butthe 
romantic valley of the Teme intervenes ; and at Knightsford the river rushes swiftly along at the 
base of an immense and nearly perpendicular conglomerate rock, upwards of 200 ft. high. Little 
research has been made into the subterraneous treasures of this district, but a shaft is now being 
sunk at Cradley, about two miles from Great Malvern, which may probably throw some light upon 
the subject. — Edwin Lees. Hunter’s Hall, near Little Malvern, Sept. 15. 1829 
The Lime-Works at Colwall.—Since writing the above I have visited the lime-works at Colwall, 
close to the base of the Malvern range, on the western side, and about a quarter of a mile from a 
road cut through the hills, called the Wych. The transition limestone here abuts against the 
range, and various limestone eminences appear, stretching in a confused manner northwards to 
Cradley, where, 2s I before observed, a shaft is now being sunk, in the expectation of finding 
coal. ‘The stratum of limestone at Colwall dips to the west, and is evidently a different bed from 
that at Ledbury, which is four miles to the south-west, the fossils here being different from those 
at Ledbury. I noticed many corallites, with some fine specimens of chain coral, lying about near 
the quarry, and the stone in the upper part of the bed is in many places abundantly covered with 
minute zoophytes, in the manner of the Dudley specimens, but unattended by trilobites ; however, 
in a stone trom the lower part of the stratum, I observed a small specimen of the Dudley trilobite 
(Calyméne Blumenbach/s!, but I neither saw nor heard of the trilobite popularly known-among 
he men as the butterfly (A’saphus caudatus’. In a-hole of a neglected part of the quarry, Tf 
