94 



Ihirfoii : Some Liiico/ns/iirc Jiouidcrs, 



the testimony of the old inhabitants as to the time when this 

 Bucknall connecting drain was made. Mr. Wheeler, writing to 

 me on the snbject. says, * the boulders you mention are no doubt 

 kinsmen of those found when the New Cut for the Witham was 

 made.' This is referred to in his book as follows : — ' In the 

 excavation for deepening the Upper Witham, some boulders of 

 Lias limestone and sandstone were found, the largest of which 

 was about 6 ft. by 4 ft., and 2 ft. 6 in. deep.' 



No I boulder, from its appearance, seemed to me to differ 

 from the remaining four, but, from the interesting account of 

 them given by Prof. P. F, Kendall, they are all, doubtless, from 

 nearly the same source ; and, in all probability, those Mr. 

 Wheeler mentions had the same origin also. 



The fossils contained in the boulders, with a few loose ones 

 lying about on the ground all in fragments, have been identified 

 by palaeontologists in the Jermyn Street Museum, and, through 

 the kind aid of Mr. G. Barrow, I have received the following 

 particulars : — 



No. I boulder — Fragments of Ammonites, Gasteropods and 

 Lamellibranchs. Pecten lens Sow ? Ostrea sp. Ceri- 

 thium sp. 



The four remaining boulders are of sandstone, with frag- 

 ments of Lamellibranchs. Loose fossils- — Am. (Peri- 

 sphinctes) raricostatus Buckl. Nodule shewing septarian 

 structure and Am. (Cardioceras) cordatus, with Serpula 

 sp. attached. 



This last, Mr. Barrow allocates to a bed he knows well, 

 a iimey clay hand with V ermiculites a type of thing from the 

 base of the Ampthill Clay, just over the top of the Oxford Clay 

 (thus proving its near local origin). The large ammonite and 

 the clay band nodule (he adds) probably came from the same 

 area.' 



x\s to the matrix from which the boulders were derived. 

 Prof. Kendall has identified them as all coming from the same 

 source, the Spilsby Sandstone. ' Your boulders,' he writes, 

 ' are more interesting than you think. There is no such variety 

 (referring to No. i) known in situ in Lincolnshire, but I have 

 found very large boulders, greatly resembling yours, though 

 far more fossiliferous, and having the fossils most beautifully 

 preserved. They occur in a train extending from near Doning- 

 ton-on-Bain away southward and westward into Cambridgeshire, 

 Norfolk and Northamptonshire, though not in the fossiliferous 



Naturalist, 



