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[INTRODUCTION 

 Bibliographic Details 



In the early days of Geology four authorities dealt with the Jurassic 

 fossils of Yorkshire : Young & Bird, John Phillips, and Martin Simpson. 

 They named a large number of species, but their task was inadequately 

 performed : Young & Bird described their species very shortly, giving 

 poor figures of a portion only ; Phillips issued mere sketches, and gave 

 no descriptions ; while Simpson furnished good descriptions, but gave 

 no figures. 



Phillips' tyjjes are lost, stolen in London from the coaching inn : 

 perhaps they lie at the bottom of the Thames. However, the majority of 

 the typ)es of Young & Bird, and of Simpson, are contained in Whitby 

 Museum, with which Young, Bird, and Simpson were connected ; the 

 specimens are, for the most part, readily identifiable from the Museum 

 registers, as well as from other indications. They form a fine collection : 

 there will be, perhaps, 150 or more species ; emd in regard to the majority 

 of them, authors, both British and foreign, have failed to interpret the 

 Yorkshire writers correctly, which is not surprising. 



The works of Young & Bird, though well enough known, are 

 procurable only with some difficulty ; the works of Martin Simpson 

 are very little known outside of his native county, and are almost 

 unprocurable. His " Monograph of Lias Ammonites, " (London, 1843) 

 is extremely rare ; and his " Fossils of the Yorkshire Lias " (London, 

 1855), is very scarce. Yet these modest works are more imjwrtant 

 than those of the other authors so far as Ammonites are concerned : 

 they contain careful and discriminative studies of many species ; and 

 their worth has not yet received due recognition. Without full illustra- 

 tion of Simpson's tyj)es it is almost impossible to obtain due knowledge 

 of Lias Ammonites, and certainly dangerous to describe or name species 

 as new. For the statement advanced by certain geologists, that descrip- 

 tions without figures give no claim to priority of nomenclature, is not 

 admitted by zoologists. If it were allowed to exclude the unfigured 

 species of Young & Bird, and of Simpson, it would also have to be 

 applied to exclude many of those of Linne, Bruguiere, Lamarck, 

 Schlotheim, and others, which, however, have been generally accepted. 



The publishers of the present work, therefore, consider that the 

 reproduction of these types by photographic process, with reprints of 

 the original descriptions, especially those of Simpson, will render an 

 important service to palseontology ; and they hope that it will meet 

 with the necessary encouragement. 



Mr. T. Xewbitt, F.G.S., Curator of the Whitby Museum, has been, 

 and is, kindly investigating the typ)es, and the Council of the Museum 

 has consented to their being placed, for the purposes of this publication, 

 in charge of the Editor, who has, fortunately, as collaborator for the 

 photographic work, Mr. J. W. Tutcher : his remarkable results are 

 widely known. 



