192 Miscellaneous — Thomas Pennant Collection of Fossils. 



The Thomas Pennant Collection of Fossils. 



Some published notices have recently appeared calling attention 

 to the natural history collections of Thomas Pennant, formed a 

 century and a half ago, wliicli have been generously presented to 

 the British Museum by the Right Honourable the Earl and Countess 

 of Denbigh, of Downing, Flintshire, Pennant's birthplace and home, 

 where the collections have lain since his death in 1798. As no 

 mention has been made of the fossils, which form an important part 

 of this gift, it seems necessary to make a statement on the subject. 

 These fossils comprise upwards of a thousand specimens, including 

 the remains of Vertebrates, Mollusca, Brachiopods, Crustacea, Corals, 

 and other groups of organisms from various geological horizons of 

 both British and foreign localities. Many of the specimens bear 

 a number having reference to a manuscript catalogue where brief 

 descriptions are given. The main title of this volume is somewhat 

 quaint, and reads as follows : Reliqui(B Diluviance, or a Catalogue of 

 such Bodies as were deposited in the Earth hy the Deluge. On the 

 back is printed in gilt letters " Extraneous Fossils, vol. 3 ". A few 

 of the fossils are distinctly interesting from the fact that they have 

 been either figured or mentioned in literature ; and particularly is 

 this the case in connexion with three small Wenlock Limestone corals 

 from the Coalbrookdale area of Shropshire. These were described 

 and figured by Pennant in one of his earliest published papers of 

 the Philosophical Transactions (Royal Society), vol. xlix, pt. ii, 

 pi. XV, figs. 1, 3, 4, pp. 513, 514, 1757, entitled "An Account of 

 some Fungitse and other Coralloid Fossil liodies " ; such specimens 

 being now recognized under the genera Favonites and Actinocystis. 

 There is also a Mammoth tooth which is referred to in his Sy^iopsis 

 of Quadrupeds, p. 90 (1771), as having been found in a bed of 

 gravel beneath a thick limestone, " at the depth of 42 yards in 

 a lead-mine in Flintshire." 



Thomas Pennant (1726-98) was a naturalist of considerable 

 reputation, having been a contemporary and correspondent of Linnaeus, 

 and a close friend of Gilhert White, whose letters forming The 

 Natural History of Selborne were mostly addressed to "Thomas 

 Pennant, Esq." He was the author of numerous works on natural 

 history, such as The British Zoology (1766), Genera of Birds (1773), 

 History of Quadrupeds (1781), etc., some of which reached several 

 editions. 



It may be of interest to add that a small selected series of these 

 fossils is now exhibited in one of the Museum table-cases of the 

 Geological Department, in companj' with the Hans Sloane, the 

 Brander, and other historical collections ; the remainder are arranged 

 in the cabinet drawers beneath. The manuscript catalogue is deposited 

 in the library of the same department. "R B N" 



The Ckoonian Lecture. — Dr. R. Broom, of Soutli Africa, has been 

 chosen by the Royal Society to deliver the Croonian Lecture. 



