410 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



"Anno 1617, 9 Maii, 15 Jac. — That the rivers of Wisbcche and aU the 

 branches of the Nene and West Water be cleansed and made in bredth and 

 depth as much as by antient record they have been." 



The bones above referred to were taken from a peat-soil of a dark brown 

 colour. 



In the same paper is a notice of a part of an elephant's skull with two grinders, 

 and fragments, two feet in length, of the horns of a large species of deer, sup- 



the author observes, have no connection with the remains of beaver, but were 

 found in a stratum of clay half a mile eastward of Chatteris, of the antiquity of 

 which he can form no idea, whereas those of the beaver belong to a stratum 

 which he thinks may be referred to a period not very distant even in the history 

 of our country. 



The titles of the plates describe the specimens as then being in the possession 

 of Prof. E. D. Clarke, of Cambridge.— I. A. B. 



The Thihd and Eifth Days of the Mosaic Narrative. — When examin- 

 ing the Silurian rocks in the south of Scotland, a fact has often struck me 

 which I am at a loss to understand. The whole of the organic remains found 

 in these rocks, with the exception of marine algae, were, according to the 

 Mosaic narrative, creations of the fifth day ; the terrestrial vegetation, 

 according to the same authority, was created on the third day. Notwith- 

 standing, we find no trace of the third day's creation in any of the Silurian 

 formations, and very few in the Devonian, and not until we enter on the Car- 

 boniferous system (formed thousands of centuries after the Silurian) do the 

 "grass and herbs yielding seed and the fruit-trees yielding fruit" appear. 

 Any of the readers of The Geologist, harmonizing the two teachings, would 

 confer a favour on Argus. — Land-plants have left their remains in the upper 

 Silurian, and, for what we know, in the Lower Silurian too, at least we have as 

 low down as the horizon of the Lingula-flags veins of anthracite and bituminous 

 exudations, although we can not yet positively state the sources from which 

 those substances have been derived. Land-plants are plentiful in some Devonian 

 beds both in the British Islands, Europe, and in North America. 



Live Lizard imbedded in a Seam oe Coal. — In the month of August, 

 1818, when the workmen were sinking a pit at Mr. Eenton's coUiery near 

 Wakefield, and had passed through measures of stone, grey " buist," blue stone, 

 and some thin beds of coal, to the depth of one hundred and fifty yards, they 

 came to the seam of coal, about four feet thick, which they proposed to work. 

 After excavatuig about three inches of it, one of the miners struck his pick 

 into a crevice, and, having shattered the coal around into smaU pieces, he dis- 

 covered a lizard about five inches long. It continued very brisk and lively for 

 about ten minutes, and then drooped and died. — See "Philosophical Magazine," 



Collecting Eossils prom Workmen. — Dear Sir, — Could you inform me 

 in your next number what is a fair price to pay workmen in Chalk-pits for such 

 fossils as Cidaris, Cyphosoma, Spondylus, sharks' teeth, fish, &c. ? I v/as in- 

 formed that a penny each was the regular charge, but I can only obtain the 

 commonest fossils, as Micraster, Galerites, Pecteii, or Terebratula, at this price. 

 — Yours truly, C. Evans, Hampstead. — We have frequently bought common 

 and refuse fossils of quarrymen in obscure localities at the prices named, but in 

 pits where the workmen are sought after for the fossils they obtain in their 

 daily labours, the prices, from the very fact of there being a ready market for 

 those articles, naturaUy rise. Neither do we thinlc it fair to the workmen, if 

 they take pains to obtain good specimens, to attempt to buy their better and 

 rarer fossils for less than a fair price. Many specimens bought for a few 

 pence are prized by their purchasers when placed m theii' cabinets at as many 



posed to be those of megaceros 



mentioned fossils, 



vol. lii., p. 377. (C. J.) 



