ENIGMATICAL FLINT BODIES BEARING THE NAME PARAMOUDRA. 215 



expectation that the origin, both of the vertical and the horizontal 

 lines of flint, would be found to be intimately connected with 

 the fossil remains of infusoria, sponges, and other organic 

 bodies." — Sir Charles Lyell, British Association Report for 1838. 



As I shall have occasion to refer later on to Sir Charles 

 Lyell's subsequently published views as to the nature of the 

 Paramouclras, for the present I will content myself with 

 remarking that nothing can be more vague and unsatisfactory 

 than saying that flints, whether disposed in vertical or in 

 horizontal lines, are intimately connected with infusoria, 

 sponges and other organic bodies. A precipitation of flint 

 from its solution in sea- water, whether thrown down as 

 silicious jelly or as extremely fine powder, would necessarily 

 be mixed up with the various organic bodies lying on the 

 sea-bed; and in this way all flints may be spoken of as 

 connected with the remains of oceanic life. But how does 

 that connection, if admitted, give us the smallest insight into 

 the nature of a Paramoudra, whether regarded as a single 

 massive flint tube or as a chain of such tubes ? 



Dr. Buckland's suggestion that a Paramoudra was a link 

 connecting sponges with ascidians, however inadmissible in 

 the present condition of natural history science, was at all 

 events something tangible to be accepted or rejected ; but 

 the view put forth by Sir Charles is so vague as to be utterly 

 worthless. 



I now proceed to treat of a most important step in the 

 Paramoudra history — one that has been most strangely 

 neglected, and which involves the entire remodelling of the 

 story as known up to 1840. There is living at the Wood- 

 lands, Norwich, a magistrate, and enthusiastic antiquarian 

 and geologist, named Fitch (Robert Fitch, Esq., J.P., F.G.S., 

 F.A.S., &c, The Woodlands, Norwich). Sir Charles Lyell, in 

 his Paramoudra article, bearing date 1838, expresses a hope 

 that Norfolk geologists will be led by it to study the Para- 

 moudras more minutely. How far the hope thus put in print 

 influenced my friend, Mr. Fitch, I cannot say, but not long 

 after 1838, Mr. Fitch, with whom I had long been intimate, 

 took me to Horstead, and there to my no small surprise 

 shewed me that the core of chalk in the Paramoudras when 

 broken - up displayed a central green tube ; this tube, 

 surrounded with the chalk core, reminding one of a caudle 

 wick immersed in tallow. 1 at once urged my friend to 

 make his discovery public. This he did in the pages of 

 my own journal, the neAv series of the Magazine of Natural 

 History for 1840, and I added the following note : — 



