574 Correspondence — Dr. WJieelton Hind — Rev. 0. Fisher. 



COIRIRES IPOlsr JDIBIvrCE. 



GEOLOGY OF DERBY, BURTOX-OX-TRENT, Etc. 



Sir, — Reading your review on the memoir of the Geological 

 Survey, " The Geology of the Country between Derby, Burton-on- 

 Trent, Ashby - de - la - Zouch, and Loughborough" (Geol. Mag., 

 September, p. 416), I notice that your reviewer has misread 

 a very ambiguous statement, but I am surprised that he did not 

 take exception to his own reading. The memoir states under the 

 heading of Limestone Shales (which, by the way, in other publications 

 members of the Survey have been calling Pendleside Series) : 

 " Both the limestone and shales are thinning out in this neighbour- 

 hood, and from attaining a thickness of 5,000 feet in Derbyshire are 

 not more than 500 feet at Breedon"; with a footnote which says 

 that even " this thickness is calculated on the supposition that there 

 is not much Limestone hidden by the Trias." The Limestone Shales 

 are stated to be 30 to 40 feet thick at Ticknall. Your reviewer, 

 owing to the lack of capitals and general ambiguity, says the shales 

 have thinned out from 5,000 feet in Derbyshire to some 500 feet at 

 Breedon, when evidently the memoir means the whole Carboniferous 

 Limestone and Pendleside Series. My chief object is to protest 

 against the figures quoted for Derbyshire by the author of the 

 memoir. I very gravely doubt that there are 3,000 feet of Lime- 

 stone, and there certainly are not more than 800 to 1,000 feet of 

 shales present in any continuous or unfaulted section. 



Eeferring to the last paragraph on p. 75 of the second edition of the 

 Survey memoir on North Derbyshire, which is quoted by Mr. Wedd 

 on p. 9 of the Summary of Progress, 1904, I find the following : — 

 " In the Mole-trap Mine 300 feet of shale were passed through 

 before reaching the Limestone. The top of the shaft may be some 

 100 feet below the base of the Shale Grit, so that the Yoredale group 

 will be here about 400 feet thick." This locality is near Cromford. 

 Why the discrepancies between different publications of the Survey ? 



Whe ELTON Hind. 



A REMARKABLE BONE FROM THE SUFFOLK CRAG. 



SiKj — Will you permit me to ask whether any of your readers 

 can tell what has become of the specimen of which I give a rough 

 outline? I first saw it in 1865 in the extensive Crag collection of 

 Mr. Whincopp at Woodbridge in Suffolk. It afterwards passed into 

 the hands of Sir Joseph Prestwich, at whose house I again saw it in 

 1889, and then took the measurements from which my sketch is drawn. 



I believe it used to be an adage of the Survey that " a note made 

 at the time is worth a cartload of recollection." This was it : — 

 " Dec. 21, 1865, at Mr. Whincopp's. The collection is large and 

 unique. One of the most remarkable things is what he calls 

 a ' bludgeon.' It is a piece of a fossil rib bone, and appears to have 

 been mineralised in the Crag. It has been partially sawn across at 

 both ends. The ends show incrustations of stalagmite, but stained 

 ferruginous. The fractures look like those of recent bone, as if it 

 had been broken off before it was mineralised." 



At a subsequent visit, February 9th, 1866, I noted: "The fracture 



