506 Memoir of Ralph Gavr-Ellison, Esq. 



laws. It rLUst come from an egg ; but how the egg entered into 

 the cavity, and how the animal lived in it, are questions not so 

 easily solved. 



Limestones have two sets of joints at right angles to each other, 

 called hacks dindi joints, and they divide the layers into rhomboidal 

 masses. Now there seems no difficulty in ova passing down 

 through these joints and entering between the layers, carried 

 thither by currents of water. But the animal was not in a joint, 

 nor between the strata but in the stone, for in course of quarry- 

 ing the block had to be blasted. There are however what work- 

 men call " drys " in limestone, which are in effect fractures along 

 which the stone breaks more easily than in other directions. 

 How these have been occasioned it i& not easy to say — probably 

 they are the result of the strain on the beds when they were ele- 

 vated and disturbed. Now although those "drys" cause very little 

 apparent separation of the rock, yet they must admit moisture ; for 

 on the planes of "drys " we frequently find dendritic impressions, 

 which are metallic deposits out of the stone on the surface of the 

 " drys." I think, therefore, that along the line of the " dry" — 

 where perhaps it has not been so close as in, other parts — the 

 ovum of a Toad has been washed into the cavity. A.nd this con- 

 clusion is strengthened by the fact that moisture was observed 

 within the cavity when the toad was first exposed. [Mr Tate 

 subsequently adds " very doubtful this about the Toad."] 



Memoir of Ralph Garr-Ellison, Esq., of Dunston Hill and 

 Hedgeley, J. P., F.S.A., Scot 



[A melancholy interest attaches to the following memoir, as 

 coming from the pen of the Eev. J. F. Bigge of Stamfordham. 

 A few alterations which he had intended to make in it, he was 

 prevented from inserting by his own very unexpected and 

 lamented death.] 



It is a painful duty to record the death of one of the oldest 

 and most valued members of the Berwickshire Naturalists' 

 Society, Mr Ealph Carr-Ellison. He was born on November 

 23rd, 1805, and was the son of Mr John Carr of Dunston Hill, 

 in the County of Durham, and of Hedgeley, in the County of 



