DR. ROWE ON THE YORKSHIRE CHALK.* 



J. W. STATHER, F.G.S., 



Hxdl. 



This is a work to which East ^'orkshire geolog-ists have been 

 looking forward with lively interest, because they have long- 

 wished to know how the scanty and peculiar fossil fauna of 

 their native wolds compared in detail with the richer and better 

 known beds of the southern counties. So when the rumour 

 travelled northward that Dr. Rowe, of Margate, the authority 

 on the palaeontology of the chalk of the South of England, was 

 about to visit Yorkshire, the news was received with the greatest 

 satisfaction. 



Dr. Rowe's work in the south is now so well known that 

 perhaps it is almost unnecessary to remind the readers ot ' The 

 Naturalist' that the line of geological research which he has 

 made particularly his own, is that which relates to fossils of the 

 Chalk and their distribution into zones. From a naturalist's 

 point of view the paper under notice is a delightful one. The 

 keen and enthusiastic collector is in evidence on every page, 

 and the hunt for specimens is described so graphically and with 

 such zest, that an almost irresistible impulse impells the reader 

 to rush into the field with hammer and chisel and join in the 

 chase. 



Dr. Rowe's attitude towards the zonal problem which con- 

 fronted him in Yorkshire may be gathered from the following- 

 sentences taken from the introduction to the paper : — ' \Ye have 

 long cherished a furtive ambition to explore this mysterious and 

 legendary coast, but have deliberately refrained from so doing 

 until such time as we had been able to study the bulk of the 

 White Chalk of the South of England, so that haply we might 

 arrive at some idea as to the average or normal in the dis- 

 tribution of the fossils in their various zones.' . . . 'There 

 is a glamour and fascination attached to the unknown, which 

 coupled with the acknowledged difficulties of a coast like this, 

 greatly adds to the zest of the work. For this coast is unknown. 

 It is a veritable terra incognita.' At first sight all this appears 

 to be stated with unnecessary strength of colour, but when we 

 remember that Dr. Rowe is here referring to purely zonal work, 



*'The Zones of the White Chalk of the Eng-Hsh Coast.' Part IV. 

 Yorkshire. Proc. Geol. Assn., Vol. i8, Part 4, 1904. An index to this, and 

 also to the other three papers on the English Chalk, has been compiled by 

 Mr. C. D. Sherborn, and appears in Part 7 of the same Proceeding's. 



1904 July I. 



