Notices of Memoirs — The Pelican in Britain. 417 



ground is but little above the level of the river and at the foot of 

 sliii:lit slope down from the jail. The beds seemed to me to be Mae 

 clay with traces of rootlets, with the upper surface decomposed to 

 a bright yellow and 5 to 6 feet thick. In places the Coal-measure 

 rocks showed beneath the clay. The Hippopotamus remains, 

 Mr. Denny said, were found deeper down (10 to 12 feet) in a more 

 sludgy and peaty matter. They were solid and dark-coloured and 

 entire. The elephant and ox remains were rather higlier up, more 



broken and worn The remains of the Hippopotamus 



are the finest I have seen : there is nearly an entire skeleton. 



[See H. Denny, Proc. Gaol, and Polyt. Soc, W. Riding, for 1853, 1854, p. 325 ; 

 and T. P. Teale, Eep. Brit. Assoc, for 1858, Sections, p. 111.] 



March 4, 1859. — Newcastle. Approaching Shields the Boulder- 

 clay seems to become thinner. It is in fact deposited on a lower 

 [level], for at Jarrovv dock it passes under ^ the bed of the river 

 and is overlaid by 50 feet -\- of silt, the upper part of whicli 

 contains thia seams of gravel, and the whole of which abounds in 

 perfect and double estuarine shells such as now inhabit the river ; 

 also with traces of wood and a few trunks of trees, and hai'd lumpy 

 nodules of grey angular limestone enclosing recent shells and 

 beautiful impressions of recent leaves, looking altogether more like 

 nodules and fossils of far older date. Pieces of branches of trees 

 are also found fossilized, more or less in the centre. In one 

 specimen of birch stem the outer bark or peel alone remains 

 unaltered, the inner bark was quite petrified and seemed to possess 

 structure. Crystals of Gay-Lussite [hydrated carbonate of lime and 

 soda] occur commonly in the centre of the nodules.- Altogether it 

 is a very curious and interesting recent deposit. 



Bones and entii-e skeletons of the red deer have been found at 

 the base of the deposit near its edge and on top of the Boulder-clay. 

 The nodules are found low down in the silt and up to within 5 feet 

 of surface. Mr. Howse thinks the chemical works may have had 

 something to do with them. He said some of the blocks were as 

 large as a large stool. 



[See also Kicliard Howse, Trans. Tyneside Nat. Field Club, vol. v, pp. 117, 118, 

 and Trans. N. Eng. Inst. Engineers, vol. siii, p. 169.] 



JsrOTIOIES OIF nyCIBlVLOIS-S- 



The Pelican as an Indigenous British Bird. On sosie Bones 

 OF A Pelican from the Cambridgeshire Fens.^ By Sidney 

 F. Harmer, M.A., B.Sc. 



IN February, 1897, some bones from the Fens were brought to 

 the University Museum of Zoology at Cambridge. Most of 

 these specimens belonged to the Beaver, Pig, Swan, Goose, and 



. ^ In a later note the ■wi'iter says : " It seemed to me almost to pass under it." 

 "^ [A mineral described under the name of ' Jarrowite ' by E. J. J. Browell was 



obtained from Jarrow Slake. It consists of carbonate of lime with nearly 4 per cent. 



of carbonate of magnesia. — Trans. Tyneside Nat. Field Club, vol. v, p. 103.] 



^ Reprinted from the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' 



Society, vol. vi (1897). 



DECADE IV. VOL. Y. NO. IX. 27 



