328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [ Feb. 23, 
(CL) yWiknteychallk ure. cconsccomee ner ccheseesas ns )aieieee about 40 feet seen. 
(2) Pale-red chalk, with red-clay partings. Crowded 
with specimens of Belemnites minimus, List. ... 
(3) Dark-blue clay, full of fossils. 
| thickness uncertain. 
According to the concurrent testimony of a number of reliable 
witnesses, this pit yielded immense numbers of beautiful Ammonites, 
mineralized by pyrites, with many Belemnites, and other shells, and 
was the source of the numerous fossils which found their way to 
the various Yorkshire museums and were labelled as Knapton fos- 
sils. From a consideration of all the evidence on the subject, I 
think there can be no doubt that this pit was opened in the highly 
fossiliferous zone of Ammonites spectonensis. The pit is now com- 
pletely closed, and the bottom planted with trees. 
A mile further to the west, and about half a mile south of the 
village of East Knapton, are found two other very interesting pits. 
The most easterly of these exhibits the following succession of 
beds :— 
(1) Hard white chalk with a few flints. 
(2) Red chalk, crowded with Belemnites minimus, List. 
(3) Black shaly clay with dark-coloured septaria, containing numerous veins 
of calc-spar ; this clay was formerly dug to a very considerable depth. 
In the clay itself, which is badly exposed at the present time, no 
fossils could be detected; but in the septaria, thrown out from this 
pit when it was worked, numerous specimens of Ammonites were 
obtained. These were all Lower-Neocomian species, Ammonites 
fascicularis, D’Orb. (a shell known locally under the manuscript 
name of A. evalidus, Bean), being especially abundant. In my 
memoir on the Speeton section, I have not introduced this Ammonite 
into my lists, not having found it en situ; but my friend Mr. Leck- 
enby assures me that the numerous specimens of this shell in his 
own and other collections were all obtained from argillaceous nodules 
in the beds exposed at low water on Speeton shore, and but very 
little above the beds containing the Portlandian species. 
In the second pit at Knapton, which is only about 100 yards to 
the westward of the former, we find the following beds :— 
(1) Hard white chalk with a few flints. 
(2) Light-red chalk full of Belemnites minimus, List. 
(3) Dark-blue clays, very pyritous, containing many small brown fragments 
of ironstone. 
This clay, from its pyritous character and long exposure to atmo- 
spheric influences, is now crowded with beautiful crystals of selenite. 
I could find no fossils here ; but if such originally existed in the beds, 
they must long since have perished, owing to the quantity of pyrites 
in the clay. 
The most interesting circumstance, however, in connexion with 
this pit is, that at some little distance from the surface a layer of 
phosphatic nodules, about 6 inches thick, was discovered by the late 
Mr. Tyndall, of Knapton Hall. The value and importance of this 
discovery were not lost upon William Smith, who, then a resident 
