128 



NOTES on LINCOLNSHIRE GEOLOGY. 



Fossils in a Claypit near Lea, Lincolnshire. — On the 17th January 

 1902. my father (Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S.) and I arranged to go to 

 Mr. Wells' claypit. We took the 9.30 train to Lea, and then walked to the 

 brick kiln, getting 1 a tew mosses on the way. Here the foreman showed us 

 where he had found some of the vertebrae and several small bones of what 

 appears, without doubt, to be an Icthyosaurus. Some specimens of these 

 vertebrae had been brought to my father some time before, and the object 

 of our walk was to see where they had been found and to investigate 

 a certain fault about which Mr. Wells had informed my father. The tail of 

 the Icthyosaurus seemed to be pointing eastward, as the workmen said the 

 vertebra? tapered in that direction. About ten feet of the clay in which 

 the bones were lying had been dug, but the part where the head would 

 naturally lie had not been touched. We found plenty of fossil shells (all 

 bivalves) and some ammonites, among which were some very flat ones, 

 which my father thinks are probably plauorbis. There were two layers of 

 limestone, the upper five feet from the surface, the lower two feet below 

 that ; in two places these were faulted, but the exact cause cannot be seen. 

 We also noticed that the layers on the east side of the pit were lower than 

 those on the west, and the men told us that at a pit called Klondyke, about 

 two hundred yards to the east, they had dug - twenty-five feet down and not 

 found them. 



We walked back to Gainsborough, and on our way back saw a Blackbird 

 {Turdus merula) with one white feather in its tail. — Philip A. Burton, 

 Highfield, Gainsborough. 18th January 1902. 



Lincolnshire Boulders. — On looking recently through ' The Naturalist ' 

 volume for 1900, I saw, for the first time, on page 362, in the Report of the 

 Yorkshire Boulder Committee, a record by Mr. J. A. Jordan, of boulders" 

 found by him on Spital Hill, Gainsborough. 



Blocks of stone there certainly are on the hill-side, but they were put 

 there by the local authorities for certain purposes. 



The hill, which runs up the Keuper escarpment overlooking- Gains- 

 borough on the east, is about 450 yards in length. On the north side of it 

 there is a slightly-raised footpath, and on the south a ditch. The foot-path 

 is held up by paving-strips which are buttressed here and there by blocks of 

 stone ; while on the south side other blocks are laid down to keep carts and 

 wagons off the ditch. I have counted the blocks, and on the south side 21 

 are visible and on the north 33. Some of them, however, might easily be 

 overlooked by anyone passing by owing to their small size. 



I need not repeat what 1 stated in 'The Naturalist' for 1897, p. 371, 

 about stones brought, either as a cargo or ballast, by boats, and the use 

 made of them by town and highway authorities ; but I may mention that 

 one particular block I then alluded to, as showing marks of the boring-rod, 

 lay by the side of this road a little way above the top of Spital Hill. 



As to the composition of the stones I can say nothing. They range 

 from true rocks to Frodingham slag. Some of them have been there for 

 many years, while others have been added more recently. Whatever they 

 are they have no geological interest, and have no claim to be recorded as 

 'boulders.' — F. M. Burton, Highfield, Gainsborough, 6th December 1901. 



NOTES and NEWS. 



We are in receipt of various reprints. From Hull Mr. T. Sheppard, F.G.S., 

 sends us his memoir of the celebrated Adrian Hardy Haworth, F.L.S., who 

 lived from 1767 to 1833, the second of his most interesting- series of ' By- 

 Gone Hull Naturalists." And Mr. W. Whitwell, F.L.S., favours us with 

 reprints of ' East Sussex Notes ' (botany at Horsted Keynes) and his 

 ' Notes of Shells Observed and Collected in East Sussex ' (at the same place). 



Naturalist, 



