Correspondence — F. L. Kitcliin c& J. Pr ingle. 285 



Gault clay-pit. It seems clear that Julies-Browne regarded these 

 specimens with suspicion. Although he was provided with a list of 

 these fossils, which were collected for him, he did not mention them 

 in connexion with his section published in 1900 (reproduced by 

 Mr. Lamplugh). He probably suppressed mention of them, for he 

 certainly knew better than to assign them to a liorizon below the 

 Gault Clay. In any case, the lowest Gault of Long Crendon has been 

 shown to be Upper Gaidt, with an unconformable base, and the 

 niammillatus-h.orizov, to which Mr. Lamplugh wrongly ascribes 

 the limestone, is unrepresented there. We have no doubt that the 

 fossils, all of which may have occurred in a single piece of limestone 

 of small dimensions, came from the surface. Fragments of " red 

 chalk " and other extraneous material have been recorded from *:he 

 Drift of Oxfordshire. There is Drift on Long Crendon hill : the 

 matrix of these fossils is not unlike '"' red chalk ". 



On p. 28 of his paper, M^hen comparing the section in the old pit 

 near Heath House with that in Harris's pit at Shenley Hill, 

 Mr. Lamplugh says that the Gault in these two exposures agrees 

 in all essential particulars, a statement quite contrary to fact. The 

 lowest 15 feet of Gault in these two sections is so well contrasted, 

 both lithologically and paloeontologically, as to preclude any idea 

 of correlation. This contrast is fatal to Mr. Lamplugh 's view. 

 He also states as a fact that Lower Gault fossils were formerly 

 obtained from the Heath House section (p. 79), though there is no 

 evidence of this. Jukes-Browne recorded Ammonites interruptus 

 from a nodule-bed there which contaiiis a rich LTpper Gault fauna ; 

 but certain hoplitids of the Upper Gault were at that time usually 

 determined as " A. interruptus ", and the record is witliout any 

 value. To accept it as evidence of the presence of Lower Gault 

 is merely absurd, in view of the fossils (" Ammonites rostratus," 

 '■ A. varicosus,''' " Inocermnns sv.lcatas " and others) with which the 

 species was stated to be associated. 



On p. 20, Mr. Lamplugh's diagram illustrating the section at the 

 northern end of Miletree Farm pit is so drawn as not to show the 

 important unconformity that occurs there. The reader must 

 inevitably obtain a false impression as to the relation between the 

 Gault and the Lower Greensand at that locality. The case is poor 

 indeed that depends on such methods of advocacy as are iUustrated 

 by this and the other examples mentioned above. 



In his discussions of the palaeontology Mr. Lamplugh shows little 

 understanding of essentials. Names seem to appeal to him more than 

 the facts and principles of evolution, about Avhich he appears to know 

 nothing. His method is to labour the points that he believes (not 

 always correctly) to be favourable to his view and to pass adroitly 

 over those that are unfavourable. Speaking of the Inocerami 

 found in the lower part of the Gault at Harris's pit (p. 78), believed 

 by him to be Lower Gault, Mr. Lamplugh states that one of these is 

 a form common in the " lower part of the Gardt " elsewhere, 



