94 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Mr. Calvert Clapham states that " at Speeton it (the Eed Chalk) is in 

 some places a soft red clay, and is used to colour bricks and red pottery." 

 Whenever the Eed Chalk is found soft, like clay, at Speeton, it is because 

 of its being displaced from its original bed and ground to a powder by 

 large masses of white chalk which overlie the red chalk, falling upon 

 it, and then the rains falling upon, or small streamlets passing through it, 

 give it the consistency of " soft red clay ; " but it is not to be found in a 

 soft clayey state in situ. I must beg respectfully to state, that Mr. C. 

 Calvert is labouring under a mistake, when he states that the red chalk is 

 used at Speeton for colouring either bricks or rough pottery : it is not so 

 used ; but an article very much the same in colour is used, viz. Venetian 

 red, a sample of which I enclose for your inspection, and remain, 



Your obedient servant, 



Edw. Tindall. 



Mammalian and Human Remains, Isle of Portland. 



Sir, — Will you allow me to send you some remarks relating to an ac- 

 count, in the ' Times ' of the 1st of January last, of some human and 

 other bones which have been discovered associated together in fissures of 

 the rock of Portland Island, during the building of the fortifications 

 there ? 



The following is the passage in the ' Times : ' — " The sections of the 

 w r onderful geological strata which form the Island of Portland are seen 

 for the first time, in the straight rocky walls of the ditch, in all their 

 curious variety. What is most singular is f that at regular intervals of 

 twenty-five or thirty yards, and commencing about twenty feet below the 

 surface of the ground, are a series of vertical faults or gaps, about two 

 feet wide, which, as far as can be judged, penetrate to the lowest sub- 

 strata of the island, and traverse it completely from north to south. In 

 these extraordinary clefts, human bones have been found, with those of 

 wild boars and horns of reindeer, not fossilized, but with all their osseous 

 structure as perfect as if they were not fifty years old." 



In ' Willis's Current Notes'' for August, 1852, there is a nearly similar 

 account of human and other bones found in the fissures of the Portland 

 rock. The account says : — " It appears that in the year 1844, some human 

 bones were discovered on the ledges of a fissure in a quarry belonging to 

 Mr. Weston, at different depths, from twenty -five to forty feet. These 

 fissures run parallel with each other throughout the island, from north- 

 east to south-west, at stated distances, varying from forty-five to sixty feet, 

 and the quarry men say that they always know when they are coming near 

 to them from the form the upper layers of loose stone and rubble assume, 

 losing their longitudinal stratification, and having all the appearance of 

 having been dragged out of their position by a mighty rush of water from 

 abo> e into the fissure. These fissures do not extend to the surface-soil by 

 five or I en feet, and run down to the blue clay, through the several strata 

 of stone, etc., to the depth of from eighty to a hundred feet, having many 

 ledges or shelves in them, and generally covered with stalactitic forma- 

 tions. On several of these ledges a number of bones of all kinds of ani- 

 mals were found, including those of the human species. These were pre- 

 served and shown by Captain Manning to the late Rev. Dr. Buckland, on his 

 next visit to the Castle ; but the doctor having doubts as to the place where 

 they were found, accompanied Captain Manning to the fissure, where a 

 lad \>as let down who brought up more of the bones in his presence. 



