NOTES AND QUERIES. 
205 
the pleasure of editing, I beg permission to express in your journal, 
which, I trust, has the wide circulation it deserves, my sincere regret 
that any one could be found to exhibit such a carelessness of truth, or 
ignorance of fact, in a book intended for an intelligent public. 
I am, dear Sir, yours, &c., 
Somerset House, April 10, 1858. T. Eupeet Jones. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Bone-bearing Gravel of Cropthorne. — New Fern from tue Coal near 
Bewdley. — Passage-bed between Silurian and Devonian Rocks in thb 
Abberley Hills. 
(^Extract of a letter from Mr. G. E. Roberts to the Editor.) 
Dear Sir, — I have made two or three minor discoveries this month, but not of 
importance to warrant a paper ; however, they are interesting, so you may use 
them as you please as extracts from this letter. 
The bonc-bcaring gravel of Cropthorne (near Evesham), a post-tertiary deposit, 
is well known for its bones of Pachydermatous and other mammalia. I have dis- 
covered a northerly continuation of this at Iliinbleton (four miles north-east of 
Worcester). It there forms a terrace-line on the lower Lias, and presents the 
usual lacustrine indications ; shells of Unio, T,ymna;a, and Cyclw occurring among 
the gravel and bones, as in the DeiFord and Cropthorne beds. I have met with no 
elephantine remains, however ; the bones (vortcbnc, tibia, &c.) being restricted 
to one Bos (D. longifrons) and a Cervus. I first noted this ossiferous gravel iu 
September last, and, meeting Dr. Falconer soon after, brought some of tlie bones 
under his notice. The bed is there six feet in thic!<ness, and also contains bones 
of Saurians {Ichthi/osaimis tenuirostris and /. inierinedius) washed out of the Lias 
shales upon which it rests. 
The hollow bones (tibia, kc.) are filled with an infiltration of marl, and are 
pierced, in some instances, by Teredines (?) 
I have lately been working at a bed of estuarine shales, belonging to the upper 
Coal Measures, and exposed on the east bank of the Severn, two miles north of 
Bewdley. A new fern, of great beauty, from thence, is in the hands of Professor 
Morris, who intends to describe it. I have, also, from this bed, several fine fronds of 
I'ecuptcris, attached to the rachis, which fact goes far, I think, to connect these 
plants in a direct line of ancestry with our living Pleris and Laslnva ; I had rather 
believe them such than the mere leaves of Sigillarian trees, as some have thought. 
The rachis is, in its compressed state, from half to three-quarters of an inch in 
width, just the dimensions of a recent fern-stalk, grown succulent in a damp 
situation. 
My last excursion was to the north end of the .\bberley Hill. Here I can add 
some trifling matter to Professor Phillips's admirable monograph (" Palsoozoic 
District of Malvern and Abberley," &c., &c.) I believe the equivalents of the 
Ludford Fish-bed, of the " 'I'rochus and Bcyricliire bed," and of the " Railway 
shales," are to be found there. Tlie characteristic fossils of the first I have met with, 
but they are distributed through six feet of deposit, instead of being confined 
within the narrow limits of the " Fish-hod." (Shagreen-scales, a simple plate 
of fragments of fl-ih -bone and 0/ic/»i.s spines.) Again, in the upper 
Ludlow Tilcstones, well exposed on both sides of the terminal hill, Troclms 
hebcitcs occurs, and Bfi/richiw (two or more species), but I cannot detect the true 
equivalent of the " Trochus and Beyrichia; bed." 
Orthis linirtta is very abundant wliere the Fish-bed ought to be, and Orhicula 
ritgata ; so we have the leading fossils, if we .are here beyond the confines of that 
remarkable conclusion of iohthyic life. However, I do not think we .are. 
The rarest fossil 1 met with was Agnostus Maccogii, iu the Downton Sandstones, 
on the west side of the hill. I was pleased to find, on the cast side, in the same 
formation, the equivalent of the Downton Vegctablo-bcd. The fo.ssils arc little more 
