G. C. Crick — Locality of Nautilus truncatuSy 8b//. 515 



Oa account of the horizon and locality that Sowerby ascribed to 

 this specimen, the species has been usually regarded as of Lower 

 Liassic age, but the matrix differs entirely from that of the 

 Ammonites from Keynsham that are in the British Museum 

 collection, and Mr. Etheridge, who is well acquainted with the 

 rocks at Keynsham, after examining the specimen, tells me that 

 it is certainly not from that locality. Moreover, if the specimen had 

 been found at Keynsham it seemed to me most probable that there 

 would be examples of the species in the Bristol Museum, but 

 Mr. Bolton, the Curator of that Museum, having at my request 

 looked over all the Liassic Cephalopoda there, tells me that he cannot 

 find an example of Nautilus truncatiis. 



During an examination of some Jurassic Nautili in the British 

 Museum, Mr. S. S. Buckman, some time since, suggested to me that 

 the specimen was not from the Lias, but possibly from "the 

 Fullers' Earth in the neighbourhood of Midford, containing 

 Rhijnchonella like varians." With reference to this suggestion 

 I can only state that there is no record of a Nautilus from 

 the Fullers' Earth in H. B. Woodward's Memoir on the Lower 

 Oolitic rocks of England and Wales (Mem. Geol. Survey), and so far 

 as I am aware no example has yet been recorded from that deposit. 



Fortunately there are remains of other fossils in the infilling of 

 the body-chamber of the specimen; these include Rhynchonella , 

 Myacites, Astarte, Isocardia, Ostrea, a Gasteropod (probably Eulima), 

 and a jDortion of a fish-tooth which Dr. Smith Woodward has 

 identified as StropJwdus. 



The matrix of the specimen, the mode of preservation, and the 

 associated fossils led me to think that the fossil was of Cornbrash 

 age. I therefore carefully examined the Cornbrash Nautili in the 

 British Museum collection. With one exception these came from 

 a small pit,' which was temporarily opened some years ago in the 

 neighbourhood of Bedford, where they occurred with such charac- 

 teristic Cornbrash fossils as ' Ammonites ' discus, Waldheimia obovata, 

 Nucleolites clunicularis, ITolectypus depressus, Pygnrus Michelini, etc., 

 and on comparison I found them to agree in all respects so perfectly 

 with Sowerby's type-specimen that there cannot be the slightest 

 doubt as to the identity of the species. The largest example of this 

 species in the collection is about 13^ inches in diameter. 



My conclusions, then, with regard to Sowerby's type are (i) that it 

 is not of Liassic age, (ii) that it did not come from Keynsham, and 

 (iii) that it came from the Cornbrash, but from what locality I do 

 not venture to suggest. 



Mr. E. T. Newton, of the Geological Survey, and Prof. J. F. Blake, 

 who has quite recently made a special study of the Cornbrash, have 

 examined the fossil, and I am pleased to be allowed to state that both 

 support me in my conclusions as to the age of the specimen. 



1 This pit was known to the writer as the " Midland Railway Pit " ; it was on the 

 south-western side of the town, on the small piece of ground on the western side of, 

 and adjoining, the maiu line of the Midland Railway, and between the Kerapston 

 Road and the river. I believe the stone was excavated for building a wall at the 

 northern end of the Aiupthill Tunnel. 



