246 On Fossils used as Ornaments. 
him the honorary degree of D.C.L. He was elected President of 
the “Congres Géologique International,” which held its session in 
London in September, 1888. His latest papers were read before the 
Geological Society of London, ‘On the pre-Glacial Drifts of the 
South of England, with a view to determine a base for the Quaternary 
Series, and to ascertain the Period of the Genesis of the Thames 
Valley ” (see Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1890, vol. xlvi. pp. 84, 120, 
155). ‘On the Age of the Valley of the Darent and remarks on 
the Paleolithic Flint Implements of the District,” etce., in which 
he shows that on the high chalk plateaux of Kent there are flint 
implements of a peculiar rude type fashioned by a race of men of 
much greater antiquity than those who made the implements of the 
Thames and Somme Valleys (op. cit vol. xlvii. 1891, pp. 126-163). 
““On the Raised Beaches and ‘Head’ or Rubble-drifts of the South 
of England,” ete. (op. cit. vol. xlviii. 1892. pp. 263-843). ‘On the 
Evidences of a Submergence of Western Europe at the close of the 
Glacial Period,” ete. (Royal Soc. Proc. March 9, 1893). 
Since Professor Prestwich’s retirement from the Oxford Chair, in 
1888, he has mostly resided at his country seat, Darent Hulme, 
Shoreham, Kent, a charming house built to his own taste some 25 
years ago, full of quaint geological pictures by Ernest Griset; and 
even in its architecture illustrating geology at every turn. Here he 
divides his time between his garden and his library, always in 
association with Mrs. Prestwich, his ever-constant companion and 
most enthusiastic scientific friend, adviser, and co-worker, the beloved 
niece of the late Dr. Hugh Falconer, F.R.S. H. W. 
II.—On Fossins APPLIED AS CHARMS OR ORNAMENTS. 
By Tue Eprror. 
HE summer visitor to Lyme-Regis, to Scarborough, or to Whitby, 
is familiar with the little Ammonites, mounted in silver as 
brooches for ladies, and may even have seen them also with heads 
carved, to represent coiled-up serpents, with green or pink eyes of 
glass, inserted by the enterprising jeweller. 
Doubtless the use of these fossil shells as ornaments has been 
handed down from Saxon times, when ‘“ Whitby’s nuns exulting 
to ] d 3 as as a as aS aS 
And how of thousand snakes each one 
Was changed into a coil of stone, 
When holy Hilda prayed.’,—Marmion, Canto II. xiii. 
Nor can it be doubted that the early Rosaries, made from the 
stem-joints of Encrinites, picked up on the beach, emphasised the 
fisherman’s tradition that :— 
‘« Saint Cuthbert sits and toils to frame 
The sea-born beads that bear his name.?”— Marmion, Canto II. xvi. 
Many more such legends bearing upon fossils doubtless exist, if 
one could but gather them up. 
My friend Mr. William Cunnington, F G.S., long since drew my 
attention to an elegant relic illustrating the belief in the wearing of 
a fossil fish-tooth as a charm against evil, which prevailed in this 
