292 | Phillips— Oxford Fossils. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
—__4+—_—_. 
I. Oxrorp Fossits.—No. 1. 
By Professor Purures, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., &e. 
[Prate IX. | 
HE specimen of Fossil Wood in flint, figured in Pl. IX. of the 
GroLocicaAL Magazine, from a drawing by Mr. Crozier, was 
presented to the Oxford Museum by Sir Woodbine Parish, K.C.H., 
to whose intelligent liberality the public collections of England are 
greatly indebted. It was obtained from the Chalk of Winchester. 
The nodule of flint which, when broken across, disclosed the 
included piece of wood, is of an elongated oval form, and with the 
uneven and knobbed surface which frequently indicates aggregation 
on a sponge. ‘The fractured surface shows partial change of colour 
by watery actions from without, and many variations of tint within, 
arising from some original differences in the composition of the mass. 
The colour is on the whole lighter than is common in flints of the 
Upper Chalk. Examined with a lens, traces. of spicula and other 
organic bodies appear, but it is not practicable to trace through the 
mass a distinct spongiose texture. 
The wood lies in the middle, and the figure of the flint is in a 
general sense entirely conformed to it, and embraces it equally on 
all sides. ‘There is a certain distinctness of tint in the flint where it 
is in contact with the wood. The wood is a fragment, worn and 
rounded in some of the prominent parts, and looks like a small por- 
tion of a pine-branch which had been exposed to rough treatment, 
so as to present a wasted surface deprived of the bark. It is en- ~ 
tirely siliceous, and reveals in the utmost perfection the whole of 
the tissues. 
Traversing the woody fibres are several short tubular masses, 
swollen at the end, and marked more or less plainly with transverse 
rings. These are flint moulds in cavities left by boring-shells, pro- 
bably Teredines. It appears that these animals must have begun 
their operations in a young state on the wood when it had been re- 
duced to its present figure and magnitude; for the moulds which 
remain in their holes appear to be quite small at the surface, and 
quickly to grow larger within. 
Among the pleasures almost peculiar to geological study is the 
special gratification which many of the phenomena afford, even if 
we leave out of consideration the theoretical truths which the facts 
concur to establish. Every rock has its history; every pebble its 
vicissitudes; every fossil its accidents of life, and its casualties 
of death. In looking at this bit of wood in its flinty tomb, one 
easily imagines the train of probable events which led ‘to this con- 
clusion.’ Far away from the Cretaceous Sea of Albion, among the 
mountains previously uplifted in the west, from which had flowed 
the great river of the Wealden, we see a forest of Coniferous trees. 
