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BRITISH BELEMNITES. 



Lister follows, in 1C78, with special notice of the small rnucronate fossil, which he called 

 B. minimus, common in the " Red Chalk " of Yorkshire, the county in which he resided. 

 (' Hist. Anim. Anglise.') He says it is found in all the cliffs as you ascend the Wolds, for 

 above a hundred miles in compass, at Speeton, Londesborough, and Caistor, but always in 

 a red ferruginous earth. This remarkable observation shows how near were the able 

 inquirers of the seventeenth century to the discovery which was made a century later by 

 W. Smith in another part of England. 



Lhwyd, in 1699, gave descriptions of no less than eighty-two specimens of Belemnites, 

 with their localities, and figures of two guards, and one phragmocone. The localities indi- 

 cated show that this diligent man had collected from most of the strata of England, and 

 it is interesting to read his remark that in his native Wales he nowhere found a single 

 Belemnite. Except in the Lias of the southern coast of Wales, no one will be likely to 

 find any now in the otherwise rich principality. Eevv of the specimens collected by Plot 

 and Lhwyd are now to be found in the Oxford Museum. 



The Coralline Oolite and Calcareous Grit yielded to Lhwyd " Belemnites maximus 

 oxyrhynchus," and the large Belemnites, known as B. abbreviatus, Mill., from the quarries 

 at Cowley, Bullington, Stansford, Marsham, Garford, Basisleigh — all within easy reach of 

 Oxford. A subfusiform small Belemnite, possibly the young of the large species already 

 named, is quoted from Cowley and Marsham. One locality is given for a large cylindrical 

 species, which is remarkable : — " In medio saxo invenimus, ad collem Garsingtonensem." 

 He also quotes a small specimen from the stone quarries of Thame, and other very small 

 examples. These are the only statements known to me of any Belemnite being found in 

 the Portland Rocks of England. 



From the Oxford Clay by the Cherwell we have the young form of B. sulcatus, Mill., 

 also recognised at Apsley, in Bedfordshire. Murcot (now Moorcot) on the edge of 

 Otmoor, produced a fine example of B. tornatilis, seven inches long. Huntingdon, and 

 Pyrton, in Wiltshire — " e puteo carbonibus eruendis destinato" — are also quoted for 

 Belemnites of this age. 



The Bath Oolites, in their various stages, yielded several examples. " Stunsfield," as it 

 was then written, is cited for three canaliculate forms, which include the two now 

 generally known as B. Bessinus and B. fusiformis. At Barrington, Kidlington, and 

 Witney, localities visited near Oxford, examples occurred, but the species are untraceable. 



We recognise fossils of the Marlstone from Alderley and Wootton-under-Edge, in 

 Gloucestershire, but cannot determine the species. 



Lias Belemnites were collected at Boughton and Marston Trussel in Northampton- 

 shire, Whitton-on-Humber, Pyrton Passage on Severn, and Radstoke, in Somerset, but 

 the descriptions are insufficient for identification. 



Chalk Belemnites are mentioned in Kent and Norfolk, but special attention was 

 not directed to them. 



Morton, the author of the excellent 'Natural History of Northamptonshire,' in 1712, 



