236 



Note on the Spiti Fossils. 



[No. 3, 



questionably be useful ; the question is simply do they occur or do 

 they not. I reject as useless also, in any bearing on this fact the 

 consideration of the nature of the rock in which they are found 

 Differences or resemblances in mineral character are utterly worthless 

 as guides to such facts. 



The non-occurrence of the species referred to in Jacquemont's col- 

 lection, and in that made by Messrs. Theobald and Mallet remains. 

 Now did two persons visiting even a single quarry to collect fossils 

 after an interval of time ever come away with the same species ? But 

 here was not a quarry but a district stretching over some fifty miles 

 of difficult country. The fact that these species did not occur to 

 Jacquemont, or afterwards to Theobald and Mallet, no more disproves 

 the fact they had previously occurred to Gerard than any other case 

 of this kind. It might just as conclusively be argued that some of 

 the beautiful fossils from the cretaceous rocks of S. India which were 

 originally collected by Messrs. Kaye and Cunliffe and described by 

 E. Forbes, were not from that district at all, but from some other 

 and far distant locality, and had been ' accidentally mixed' up with 

 their genuine collections, because the same species were not met with 

 by Mr. Blanford himself in his subsequent and much more detailed 

 examination of the same area. 



But there is still another and to my mind a conclusive proof that 

 the specimens rejected by Mr. Blanford did really belong to Gerard's 

 collections, a proof which I should have been glad to communicate to 

 Mr. Blanford had there been an opportunity. A reference to Mr. 

 Sowerby's letter which I noticed above, will show that similar fossils 

 are said to have been in the possession of Dr. Buckland. To that 

 Geologist, then one of the most zealous palaeontologists in England, 

 a fine series of these Spiti fossils were sent by Dr. Gerard himself. This 

 collection still exists among the other treasures of the Oxford Mu- 

 seum, and I had the pleasure of going over it carefully with Prof. 

 Phillips last year, having visited Oxford for the purpose. It cannot 

 be supposed that in this series also Whitby or English fossils had got 

 mixed either c accidentally' or otherwise. The care with which the 

 collections at Oxford have been kept is sufficient to render this idea 

 untenable for a moment. But in this (Gerard's) collection at Oxford 

 are several specimens of several of the species* noticed by Mr. Blan- 

 # I may mention noteably Ammonites Ufronsj Am. communis} both of which 



