Correspondence — Capt. H. W. Jamieson. 285 



stage of decomposition incrusted with a thin surface of chalcedony 

 arranged in tubercles, varying in size from a pin's head to a pea. 

 These tubercles are surrounded by several rings, and frequently the 

 same ring invests two or more tubercles. Occasionally the inclosed 

 organism, which is either a Zoophyte or Mollusc, is found entirely 

 decomposed and resolved into a few pinches of dust, and all that 

 remains is the peculiarly mottled shell of chalcedony. In this case 

 the Beekite will float as easily as a blown egg. There is a very fine 

 specimen of a floating Beekite to be seen in the Silica Group of the 

 Horse Shoe Mineral Case in the Geological Museum in Jermyn 

 Street. Mr. Pengelly is of opinion that this peculiar siliceous 

 deposit is due to the decomposition of calcareous pebbles in Triassic 

 conglomerate surrounded by water holding chalcedony in solution, 

 which has been caught up and deposited on the orgauic nucleus, the 

 more readily from its being in a state of decomposition. The tuber- 

 cular appearance may easily be accounted for from the appearance 

 presented by a mass of fermenting and bubbling yeast. Thus the 

 Beekite presents us with a most interesting stereotyped record of the 

 evanescent, visible, and mechanical process of fermentation. Up to 

 the present, I believe the range of this peculiar deposit is supposed 

 to be restricted to the shores of Torbay, Australia, and the banks of 

 the Nerbudda Biver in India. Mr. Pengelly, in the paper above 

 referred to, gave it as his opinion that Beekites were only to be 

 expected in conglomeratic rock containing decomposing calcareous 

 pebbles, and through which water charged with chalcedony passes. 



I have in my possession a very perfect specimen of Beekite which 

 I found some years ago while travelling in an out-of-the-way part of 

 India. It was on the slopes of Mount Sakesur, a high isolated peak 

 forming the western extremity of the Salt Bange in the Sind Sagar 

 Doab of the Punjab ; a locality fraught with the utmost interest to a 

 naturalist, and especially so to a geologist, exhibiting, as it does, at 

 a glance, almost a vast panoramic view of nearly all the typical 

 palasontological forms familiar to European geologists, ranging 

 from gigantic specimens of Brachiopodous shells, such as Spirifer, 

 Stropliomena and Productus, steadily up through Jurassic and Oolitic 

 forms to those of the Eocene and Nummulitic Limestone. It was in 

 the face of a precipitous cliff midway up the slopes of Mount Sakesur 

 that I found my specimen deeply imbedded in a block of massive 

 sandstone which had fallen from the overhanging cliff, which in itself 

 consisted of a compact arenaceous formation of a dark grey colour 

 literally teeming with Palaeozoic fossils, such as the Productus, 

 Spirifer, Bhynchonella, Litliostrotion hasaltiforme, Crinoids, etc. 



The specimen consists of a fragment of Productus shell, very 

 probably Productus horridus — the formation itself being possibly 

 Permian Magnesian Limestone. It is coated over with a crust of 

 Chalcedony possessing identically the same tubercular structure 

 met with on the specimens from Devonshire. As far as is as yet 

 known, the geographical range of Beekites is in a limited area. The 

 discovery, therefore, of my specimen in the Punjab Salt Kange may 

 possibly possess some interest to the question of distribution, coupled 



