218 EDWARD CHARLESWORTH, ESQ., F.G.S., ETC., ON THE 



story, either of which in my opinion is sufficient to negative 

 the sponge, or any other hypothesis which refers the 

 Pararaoudras to some once living structure. One of these 

 conditions is the entire absence of structure. Now, 1 am 

 well aware that when Ventriculites and other forms of 

 sponge life, which flourished in the cretaceous ocean, are 

 found invested by flint, the sponge and the flint are some- 

 times so intimately blended, that though the shape of the 

 sponge is perfectly preserved, the flint mass on being broken 

 displays no sponge structure. But this obliteration of sponge 

 structure is an exception to the general rule ; whereas, 

 in the case of the flint Paramoudras, if we assume them 

 to have been forms of life, the total obliteration of their 

 structure by silicious petrifaction is invariable; for Dr. 

 Buckland admits that the only indication of structure in 

 breaking up Paramoudras which he has ever met with was 

 probably due to the accidental introduction of some foreign 

 body. 



The other condition is this. The Paramoudras, if once 

 living, are all of adult growth. The difference we find in 

 their dimensions is only such as holds good through all 

 adult forms of life.* What, then, has become of the Baby 

 Paramoudras ? Quarrying the chalk in the Norfolk Pits has 

 been turning out Paramoudras, we know, for three quarters 

 of a century, yet, up to this time, no Baby Paramoudra has 

 come to light. The absence of structure, and the absence 

 of Baby Paramoudras, are alike fatal to the organic theory 

 adopted by Dr. Buckland and Sir Charles Lyell. Then we 

 must fall back upon a non-organic origin for the Paramoudras, 

 and here I fully admit that the discarding one hypothesis 

 involves the necessity of attempting to frame another, and 

 to frame that hypothesis is a task beyond my powers of 

 speculative mineralogical construction. 



Lastly, what is to be thought of the remarkable discovery 

 made by Mr. Fitch, and the mysterious silence of Sir 

 Charles Lyell, respecting it. 



When the proprietorship and editorship of Mr. Loudon's 

 "Magazine of Natural History" passed into my hands, 

 Sir Charles Lyell was one among a band of distinguished 

 men of science who became contributors to its pages. 



* Mr. Horace B. Woodward, F.G.S., in a letter to the Hon. Secretary 

 of the Victoria Institute says : " At St. James' Pit, Norwich, Mr. Whitaker 

 and myself noticed one Paramoudra nearly 7 feet long, which extended 

 through two bands of flint-nodules." 



