SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



249 



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GEOLOGY 





CONDUCTED BY EDWARD A. MARTIN, F.G.S. 



The Mortimer Museum at Driffield.— A 

 descriptive illustrated catalogue of the Mortimer 

 Museum at Driffield has been prepared by Mr. T. 

 Sheppard, F.G.S. He is to be congratulated on 

 the result of his work. Mr. Mortimer, who is now 

 advanced in years, being anxious that his labours 

 and those of his brother should not be lost to the 

 district in which they had worked together for 

 years, offered to the East Biding County Council 

 for half its value the Museum, both building and 

 contents. This liberal proposal was declined last 

 year, and it is now hoped that the Hull Corpora- 

 tion may be induced to purchase the Museum. The 

 specimens were obtained by the brothers Mortimer 

 many years ago. Being first in the field, and 

 situated in a convenient centre on the Yorkshire 

 Wolds, then by far the most prolific collecting 

 grounds for prehistoric relics in England, thou- 

 sands of spear-heads, arrow-heads, " scrapers," axe- 

 heads, and other flint and stone implements were 

 got together by these enthusiastic collectors. The 

 farm labourers for miles around were induced to 

 spend their spare time in walking over the ploughed 

 fields in search of stone implements, and prizes 

 were given to those who collected the greatest 

 quantity. At that time it was a not uncommon 

 occurrence for a bucketful to be brought to Mr. 

 Mortimer. Now, however, the Wolds having been 

 carefully traversed over and over again, it is a 

 difficult matter to get together half-a-dozen speci- 

 mens. The Driffield Museum is not exclusively 

 made up of these relics picked up from the ground. It 

 contains numerous skeletons, together with objects 

 of stone, bone, bronze, or other material found in 

 association therewith, which have been dug from 

 the " barrows " or burial mounds. The opening of 

 these " barrows " has been Mr. Mortimer's chief 

 hobby, and scores have been excavated during 

 the last forty or fifty years, and their contents 

 removed to Driffield. There are now very few 

 " barrows " left unopened, consequently this 

 branch of the collection cannot be replaced. 

 Besides containing many objects of antiquarian 

 interest the geological collection is not less valu- 

 able. Students of geology and palaeontology in 

 that part of the country have every reason to com- 

 plain of the absence of good rock exposures from 

 which to collect chalk fossils. Mr. Mortimer's 

 collection of sponges, echinoderms, inocerami, and 

 other fossils is certainly by far the finest from the 

 Yorkshire Wolds. There can be little doubt that 

 local collections are of far greater educational 

 value when retained in the county from winch they 

 have been derived, and we hope that Hull will not 

 be guilty of that lack of enterprise which lost to 

 Brighton many years ago the magnificent collec- 

 tions of the great Dr. Mantell. 



A Boulder Monument. — Shap Fell, in West- 

 moreland, was an important centre of dispersion 

 in the Glacial Period, and boulders of Shap granite 



are found, which have been spread over the York- 

 shire plain, and carried to the coast between 

 Whitby and Scarborough, and also into Lincoln- 

 shire. One of these boulders, weighing about 

 twelve tons, has been taken up out of the bed of 

 the Tees, and reared on a pedestal in the Darlington 

 Public Bark to the memory of Dr. R. T. Manson, 

 F.G.S. We cannot conceive of a more appropriate 

 monument to a geologist. 



Increase of Coal Consumption. — The amount 

 of coal raised each year in the United Kingdom 

 grows apace. In 1899 the increase over 1898 was 

 no less than 18,040,265 tons. The increase of ex- 

 ported coal was 6,121,902 tons. 



Raised Beaches of the Red Sea. — Mr. R. B. 

 Newton reports, in the " Geological Magazine," the 

 results of his examination of a collection of over 

 1,500 specimens of shells from the raised beach 

 deposits of the Red Sea, submitted to him by the 

 Geological Survey of Egypt. Some of these were 

 collected by Dr. Hume from the western shore of 

 the Gulf of Akaba, but the majority of them came 

 from the west side of the Red Sea and the Gulf of 

 Suez. The species are stated to exhibit the true 

 Red Sea or Indo-Pacific facies, with a very slight 

 commingling of Mediterranean forms. A few are 

 extinct, but Mr. Newton classifies the beaches as 

 Pleistocene, on account of the large number of 

 recent species. 



The Bright Streaks in Coal. — Mr. W. S. 

 Gresley, F.G.S. , is still crying in the wilderness. 

 He has revived the ancient theory that some of the 

 coal-plants were water -living forms, and actually 

 grew where they are now fossilised. With the 

 latter opinion every one agrees, except perhaps Mr. 

 A. Strahan ; but the idea that certain bright streaks 

 of shiny coal which can be seen in almost every 

 lump were aquatic forms of vegetation was 

 scouted by a former Secretary of the Geological 

 Society as being "unsupported by any evidence 

 whatever." Mr. Gresley now returns to the charge, 

 both in the " American Geologist " and in the " Geo- 

 logical Magazine." He cites some striking evidence 

 in support of his theory. 



Selbornian Rocks of the South of Eng- 

 land. — A new Geological Survey memoir, of con- 

 siderable interest to geologists in the home counties, 

 has just been published, entitled Vol. I. of "The 

 Cretaceous Rocks of Great Britain." This volume 

 deals with the Gault clay and the Upper Green- 

 sand strata of England, and is especially noticeable 

 from the official acceptation of the term " Sel- 

 bornian " for the group of rocks described. Mr. 

 Jukes-Browne has been, perhaps, somewhat pro- 

 lific in the re-naming of rocks, but in this case no 

 re-naming is involved. He merely associates 

 under one name two formations which, although 

 distinct in many places lithologieally, are in- 

 divisible elsewhere. Much of the Folkestone 

 Gault, for instance, and of the Upper Greeusand 

 are " correlative deposits formed at the same time 

 in different parts of the same sea." In fact, the 

 Gault and Upper Greensand are not distinct 

 stages, when the former in one locality is compared 

 with the latter in another, the littoral Upper 

 Greensand being formed in one place where the 

 sea had shallowed, whilst Gault was still forming 

 in deeper water. We can therefore give a cordial 

 welcome to the term " Selbornian." the village of 

 Selborne being a locality where the development 

 of the Upper Greensand is almost unique. 



