XV. On the Origin of a remarkable class of Organic Impressions 

 occurring in Nodules of Flint, 



By the Rev. William Conybearf., of Christ Churchy Oxford, M.G.S, 



HE suite of specimens accompanying the following notice are 

 submitted to the inspection of the Geological Society, as illustrating 

 the history of certain organic impressions which are found occur- 

 ring in the flinty nodules of the chalk strata, and of which the real 

 origin had previously escaped detection. 



Mr. Parkinson, is I believe, the first naturalist who has noticed 

 similar specimens ; the following description of them is given in the 

 second vol. of his valuable work on organic remains, and it is not 

 possible to convey a more accurate idea of their external characters. 



" Small round compressed bodies not exceeding the eighth of an 

 inch in their longest diameters, and horizontally disposed, are con- 

 nected by processes nearly of the fineness of a hair which pass 

 from different parts of each of these bodies, and are attached to the 

 surrounding ones ; the whole of these bodies being thus held in 

 connection." Page 75, 76. 



Mr. Parkinson proceeds to conjecture " that the formation of 

 these bodies has been the work of some animal of a nature similar 

 to the polypes by which the known Zoophytes are formed." He 

 therefore classes them among fossil corals of unknown genera, 

 acknowledging at the same time that the circumstances which in- 

 duced him thus to arrange them were very slight, and that they 



