32 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 14, 



They vary in appearance in different specimens. In some nodules 

 the mass is made up of small cylindrical bodies, irregularly grouped 

 together ; whilst in others, equally numerous, the mass consists of 

 small oviform bodies. Their origin is at present involved in 

 obscurity. I think the oviform bodies may probably turn out to be 

 eggs of some small invertebrate animals*; and some of the others 

 may be due to Clionites or burrowing Sponges, the burrows having 

 been filled up with clay hardened and blackened by iron. This, 

 however, requires further investigation. These curious masses are 

 closely invested by argillaceous laminae, similar in form to those of 

 the nodules previously described, but apparently less numerous. A 

 few nodules have the laminae marked transversely with numerous 

 waved striae ; and I have one specimen with a few obhque striae, and 

 another with very prominent and rough transverse striae. 



Obscure as the origin of the peculiar formation of the nodules 

 certainly is, I cannot but remark that possibly, after the first calcareo- 

 argillaceous coating was aggregated around the nucleus of the 

 future nodule, whether the stem of a Grafphularia, or a long row of 

 massed oviform bodies, the further coatings of clay, their frequently 

 separate condition, and their peculiarly striated surface appear 

 to be due, to some extent, to a kind of intermittent pressure of the 

 matrix, either from its own weight, or from a kind of " creep " 

 affecting the mass whilst the longitudinal axes of the nuclei were in 

 a more or less vertical position. 



2. On the Exteaneous Fossils of the Eed Crag. 

 By S. V. Wood, Esq., E.G.S. 



The Deposit called the Red Crag indicates the action of strong re- 

 versible or tidal currents, and is more disturbed and littoral in its 

 character than any portion of a formation at present known ; and, 

 for its limited area, it contains a larger percentage of foreign f 

 organic remains than any of which we have as yet a record. I know 

 of no locality that appears to me more to resemble what was pro- 

 bably the local condition of the Sea of the Red Crag during the 

 accumulation of the material herein enumerated than the condi- 

 tions under which the Bay of Christchurch at present exists ; and I 

 believe that in the conflicting streams that now wash the shores 

 of that neighbourhood may be found a cause sufficient to produce 

 all the effects visible in the Red Crag, — only reversing the direction 

 of the land, the sea of that period opening to the northward. 



* Figures of groups of similar little oviform bodies, from the Author's 

 Collection, were published in the Magazine of Nat. Hist., 1839, plates 8 and 9. 

 See also Quart. Journ. Greol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 247, where Mr. Prestwich notices 

 similar minute oviform bodies in the Thanet Sand. When masses of these 

 corpuscles occupy the cylindrical cavities in the fossil bored wood of the London 

 Clay, they singularly resemble the excrementitious matter left by the Cossus and 

 other large caterpillars in the galleries excavated by them. 



t See the Presidential Address, Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc. No. 56, p. cxxxiii., 

 for some pertinent remarks on extraneous or foreign fossils. 



