FACTS AND INFERENCES. 301 



with shells that occur in the oolite ; nay, some of the same species of 

 belemnites and ostracites are found in the lowest shale at Boulby, 

 and in the upper shale at Speeton. Indeed, belemnites and oysters 

 occur in almost all the strata containing shells. The ichthyosaurus 

 has been thought peculiar to the alum shale ; but we now observe, as 

 we might have done before, that it occurs also in the second shale, 

 at Malton, immediately below the oolite; some large vertebree of that 

 animal having been dug up there a few years ago. Nay, it would 

 seem, that animals of this family occur in the oolite, the chalk, and even 

 the mountain limestone.* Some fossils, as the tubular belemnites, 

 are found only in certain spots ; and we might as well pronounce 

 them peculiar to the spots, as peculiar to the strata. Besides, there 

 is scarcely more difference between the fossils of different strata, 

 than between those of the same stratum in different places. In the 

 fronts of the Cleveland hills near Guisborough and Stokesley, we 

 find in the alum shale, no specimens of ichthyosaurus, of pike, of 

 area rostrata, &c. ; but we meet with several shells not hitherto 

 observed on the shore. In like manner, some of the oolite fossils 

 that occur at Malton are not seen at Pickering, and vice versa; 

 there being several shells in the oolite strata, found only in par- 

 ticular spots. We may add, that our strata contain organic remains 

 not known to exist in the strata analogous to them in the south 

 of England; and many fossils occur there, which have not been 

 observed here. 



18. Of our fossil organized substances, some correspond with re- 

 cent animals and vegetables, others have no recent analogues hitherto 

 known; and these two classes are so intermixed, that we cannot re- 

 gard the latter as more ancient than the former. — It is a fashionable 

 opinion among geologists, that the animals and vegetables imbedded 



* Geological Transactions, V. p. 591, 592. 

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