W. H. Hudleston—The Yorkshire Oolite. 243 
done before. Phillips, however, had not the local knowledge of 
Young and Bird, any more than they had his philosophy and 
erudition, but the most awkward feature in his book is that he gives 
no description of the new species which are figured in the plates. 
Now the best plate in the world without a description is inadequate, 
and Phillips’s figures are far from being good. The somewhat quaint 
drawings of the artist, Bird, are, in some cases, more recognizable. 
Owing to this want of description there has always been a difficulty 
about Phillipsian species, and some of the identifications, both at 
home and abroad, have not always been successful. Thus the fossils 
collected with so much assiduity by Williamson, Bean, and others, 
from which, for the most part, his types were taken, have not in all 
instances had full justice done to them. 
Meantime the science of paleontology began to make rapid strides, 
and its. cultivation, as regards the fossil mollusca especially, yielded 
abundant fruit in some of the monographs of the Paleontographical 
Society, and in many important works on the Continent. Never- 
theless, during the period which elapsed between the issue of the 
second edition of the Geology of the Yorkshire Coast in 1835 and 
that of the third edition in 1875 no very marked additions were 
made by publication to our knowledge of the Molluscan fauna of 
the Yorkshire Oolites, if we except a few plates (with descriptions) 
devoted to Yorkshire shells in Morris and Lycett’s well-known 
work, and a certain proportion of the species figured and described 
by the latter author in his Supplement. There is also a paper by 
Mr. Leckenby on the fossils of the Kelloway Rock, published in the 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xv. p. 4. Still the collecting of 
specimens had been going on steadily all the time, and Sir Charles 
Strickland, Mr. Leckenby, and Mr. Reed, of York, were pre-eminent 
in this respect. Important additions too had been made to our 
knowledge of the geology of Hast Yorkshire, and altogether a 
considerable addition of fresh matter was available for the third 
edition of Phillips’s work. 
It was, therefore, with no little disappointment that the geological 
public saw the same old figures reproduced without any description, 
though occasionally under a new name.’ In many respects, more 
especially as a volume of reference, this third edition is most 
valuable, but as a paleontological work it cannot be deemed 
satisfactory, considering the date of its appearance. Few will be 
disposed to doubt, therefore, that many of the fossils of these beds, 
more especially of the Corallian rocks, which have been especially 
neglected, require to be refigured, with an adequate description, so 
that they may be recognized both at home and abroad. To do this 
without making a tolerably complete monograph of each sectional 
division would be to neglect a great opportunity. It is therefore 
proposed to take certain sections, grouped as a matter of convenience, 
and not necessarily in biological order or in geological sequence. 
Many considerations have disposed me to begin with a portion, at 
! The references in the edition of 1875 are materially improved, and for this we 
have to thank the Editor of this almost posthumous work,—W.H.H. 
