96 Mr. A. IT. Church on the Composition, 



by means of evidence deduced from experiments and observations, 

 on the chemical and physical relations of these bodies. 



In addition to the localities near Torbay, it has been stated 

 that Beekites occur near Lidcot in Somersetshire; also in the 

 north of Scotland j while foreign localities for them have likewise 

 been mentioned. Their appearance varies so much that it is 

 scarcely possible to give such a description of their general form as 

 shall include all the varieties; yet figs. 1-4 and 8-13 in Plate 

 III. may perhaps indicate some of their chief characteristics. We 

 shall have to recur to several features shown in these figures 

 further on. A specimen of Beekite from Vallecas near Madrid, 

 in the British Museum, presents a very close resemblance to some 

 of the more common Torbay forms, but at the same time is re- 

 markable for unusual translucency. 



" The Beekite is not exactly a fossil, but an incrustation of 

 chalcedony upon a nucleus of coral, and occasionally, but rarely, 

 upon fragments of limestone. The chalcedony is deposited in 

 concentric circles around minute tubercles. These are very 

 sharply defined in the Beekites that are freshly dug out of the 

 cliff above high-water mark ; but if picked up on the beach, or 

 taken from the cliff where tide- washed, they are smoother and 



have lost much of their peculiar character Their form is 



irregular ; most commonly they are more or less round. They 

 take their shape from the fragments of coral upon which the 

 chalcedony has been deposited, and which having become more 

 or less decomposed and disintegrated, the chalcedony forms a 

 kind of shell or case enclosing its remains. The coral within 

 is found in various stages of decomposition, — in some specimens 

 filling the interior, in others nearly so, allowing of so much move- 

 ment that when shaken the contents may be heard to rattle ; in 

 others the coral is so completely broken down that only a powder, 

 consisting of the carbonate of lime and some brown particles of 

 organic matter, remains. The interior of the siliceous shell has 

 often the markings of the original coral." 



In these remarks, which I quote from a letter by Mr. Keste- 

 ven*, we have little more than a repetition of parts of Mr. Pen- 

 gelly's paper on Beekites read before the British Association in 

 1856f. The description given of these fossils, and the theories 

 which have been started to account for their present state, differ 

 but little. 



Beekites, unlike the pebbles of the conglomerate in which 

 they occur, do not exhibit signs of having been water-worn ; it 

 is allowed consequently that their organic bases must have been 

 silicified in situ. So say Messrs. Pengelly and Kesteven. But 



* AtheiiLCum, August 27, 1859. 

 t British Association, 1856', p. 74. 



