NOTES AND QUERIES. 



409 



pheuomena there refeiTed to, as presented by him, gives at once an air of in- 

 coherence and improbabilitY which renders palpable the falseness of the at- 

 tempted logic applied. The moment ttc apply the medium time, we have no 

 more such inconsistencies as rapidly precipitated rocks containing conntless 

 myriads of organic remahis, but which were made up in. fact not seldom of the 

 ground-down and weU-worn particles of beings that natui'aUy Hved and naturally 

 clied. TMth time brought m as an element, the volcano, intermittent in action 

 and terrific in energy, seems to poiu' forth its volmnes of molten lava over the 

 sm-faces of former lands, and ever and anon the subterranean force heaves up 

 the ground, and combats ^vith the destruction of the ever-wastuig sea. 



There is nothing hi the grand conclusions of Geology to excite merriment ; it 

 is a pious and a holy study, and if not undertaken in such a sphit had better be 

 left alone. If anywhere it be unpopular, it must be where ignorance or silly 

 thuidity prevails, and not where truthfulness and investigation find earnest 

 votaries ; if its knowledge is not more widely spread it is only because the 

 state of education is not sufficiently advanced for its beauties and sublimities to 

 be properly understood, or because men want tune for its proper pursuit. No 

 one with a mind duly capable of reflection and of elevated thought can feel 

 indifferent to the history of the earth on which he dwells, and over which his 

 race reigns predominant. 



We have printed our correspondent's communication, however, in its entu-ety, 

 considering his general remark of a seeming want of logical uiference to be ui 

 inany cases just, as far as the mere appearance goes, and as being a valuable 

 liint to obscui'e An-iters to unprove their styles of composition for the benefit 

 of those who peruse their works, as well as for the general advantage and pro- 

 gress of knowledge. 



Ch.ilk-spoxges of Yorkshire. — Dear Sir, — Noticmg m No. 13 of your 

 Magazine the request for a paper on the Sponges from the Yorkslui-e Chalk, I 

 beg to state that steps are about to be taken by me to ensure faithful di-awings 

 of aU the species of those cui'ious fossils, of which I have been collecting 

 specimens for the past twenty years. 



I am now makmg a selection Avhich I intend to have drawn, and to publish 

 with a short account of the localities where they were found, so as to enable 

 visitors and amateur-geologists to obtam such fossils themselves. 



I believe that there is not any work wliich contains figures of one tenth-part 

 of the species met Avith, and many of the forms are not, as yet, placed in the 

 museum-collections at York, Hull, or Scarborough. 



I shall have much pleasui'e ui showmg my collection to geologists visiting 

 this town. — Youi-s, &c., Edw. Tind.^l, Bridlington. 



PiRST British Tossil Beaver. — As aU notices of mammalian remains ap- 

 pear to be of value at this period of most interesting mvestigations, I have sent 

 you an abstract of one by Mr. I. Okes, from the "Transactions of the Cambridge 

 Pliilosophical Society" for 1822, of the fii'st fossil beaver found ui England. 



Erom all that has been recorded by naturahsts of the abode and habits of the 

 beaver, as also from its anatomical pecuKarities, it is generally concluded that the 

 fossil beaver of this country is not only of the same, or a nearly allied species 

 as the existing kind, but that it has once been indigenous to Great Britain. 



The fossil remams referred to in Mr. Okes paper consist of the left halves 

 of two lower jaw-bones and other portions of four skulls, dug up in 1818 by a 

 workman about three miles south of Chatteris, in Cambridgeshne, in a bed of 

 the old West Water, formerly a considerable branch of communication between 

 the Ouse and the river Nen, but which, according to the fen-people, has been 

 choked up for more than two centuiies. 



The accuracy of this tradition is proved by the foUoAAing order of Council, 

 printed in Dugdale's "History of the Ecus." 



