1864.] 



Note on the Spiti Fossils. 



237 



ford, and by him rejected as spurious Spiti fossils. I think this fact 

 quite conclusive, and that all the specimens so hastily rejected as 

 Spiti fossils by Mr. Blanford must be restored to their proper place in 

 this interesting and valuable collection. 



I said before that I had only to deal with the facts, what the con- 

 clusions derived from those facts may be is not now under discussion, 

 and whether there be in the Spiti district Liassic beds or whether 

 these Liassic species # occur in the same beds with others, supposed to 

 belong to different periods are questions which must await future 

 solution. I regret that the circumstances I have mentioned above, 

 (viz., that this paper by Mr. Blanford in its present state never had 

 come before the Society or Council) prevented my having an oppor- 

 tunity of making the author acquainted with the fact, that in another 

 portion of Dr. Gerard's Spiti collections, several specimens existed of the 

 very species which, on such insufficient grounds, he has rejected here. 



I cannot, however, conclude without again directing serious atten- 

 tion to the very great mischief arising from dealing with questions of 

 fact in this way. If the fact of the occurrence of certain forms 

 in certain places is to be thus questioned, and fancy or some supposed 

 mineral resemblance is to be accepted as negativing the deliberate 

 statements of those who had collected the fossils, supported by the 

 evidence of careful investigators who had examined these fossils al- 

 most immediately after their discovery, (and not thirty years after), 

 there can be no progress. It would be infinitely better, and infinitely 

 safer, to leave such specimens, as they are said to have been found, 

 without labels, or even to throw them out, than to falsify all the land- 

 marks of science by exhibiting them with localities attached which 

 are only imaginative. The specimens referred to are now (September 

 18th, 1863,) put out in the Society's Museum (by whose authority 

 I know not) mounted and carefully named and marked, Tipper Lias, 

 WMtby, England, without any note of doubt, and without any refer- 

 ence whatever to the fact that they had ever been even supposed to 

 come from Spiti. Collections thus treated are worse than useless, they 

 are mischievous. 



^; 



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 ; 



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occur in the Society's collection ; also Am. crassus, Phillips, a true Liassic species 

 but of which specimens do not occur in the Society's cabinet. 



* Ceratites Himalmjanus, Blanford, is exhibited in the Society's collection as 

 from the Upper Lias, Spiti valley. 



M 



