NOTES AND QUERIES. 
355 
hence occasioning very heavy works. In one place the bed of the stream had to 
be causewayed with large stones for a considerable distance. The rock has had 
to be deeply cut in several parts, and the cuttings exhibit beautiful sections of 
quartz-rock and mica-schist, disposed in such regular and thin strata, dippmg 
from north-east to south-west, as to suggest the idea that the whole are only 
altered Silui-ian rocks, hardened by internal heat. The inequalities scooped out 
by ancient currents among the rocks have subsequently been filled with a very 
hard deposit of clay and gravel, forming what is called northern drift or tiU, so 
very hard as, sometimes, to be mistaken for conglomerate-rock ; and indeed, in one 
spot, for a few hundred yards, this deposit was contracted for to be removed as 
solid rock, which it was believed would have occasioned a tunnel in the line of the 
railway. Under the pickaxe, however, the whole gave way gradually, and no rock 
in situ was met with at the point in question. Clilfs of the boulder-clay and gravel 
overhang the railway, sometimes disposed in grassy terraces, and sometimes 
covered with beautiful clumps of birch, oak, and ash trees ; and these cliffs, a 
little way below the viaduct across the Spey, extend down the river's side in high, 
naked precipices, exhibiting one of the deepest and most extraordinary series of 
clay and gravel beds to be seen in any part of the Highlands." — J. Jameson. 
Geology or Much Wbnlock. — " Sib, — Can you inform me of any works on the 
Geology of Much Wenloek and the Brown Clee and Caradoc Hills (Salop), with 
their prices ? also, when you expect to publish the ' Glossary ' spoken of in the 
March number of the Geologist, page 115 ? Thanking you for your kind answer 
to a former query, and Mr. Plant for his valuable information in the last number 
of your magazine, I remain, your's, &e., M. S., Ashby-de-la-Zouch." — The best 
work on the Wenloek districts is Sir Roderick 1. Murchison's " Silurian System," 
published in 1839, price £8 8s. Sir Roderick's condensed memoir on the 
Silurian System was publislied in 1854, price £1 10s., under the title of " Siluria," 
a new edition of which book is now passing through the press, and wiU be im- 
proved by many very important additions. 
It is our intention to commence the glossary on the completion of Professor 
Morris' " Stratigraphical Catalogue of British Fossils." 
Roman Mines in Wales. — Mr. Thomas Wright, the eminent antiquary, is 
preparing a work on the Roman mining-districts of North Wales and the border- 
country, viewing them especially with regard to archseological and historical 
results. Any information relating to traces of Roman mines, or of ancient 
workings of any kind, will, we know, be very acceptable to him. Such investiga- 
tions bring archieology into close connection with geology, and we shall be glad 
if this notice should elicit any information from our readers to the advantage of 
Mr. Wright's work. Geological notices of these old iron and gold-works would be 
interesting to many of our readers. 
The Collecting of Recent Shells. — Fossils ehom Coal Strata. — " Sib, 
.—Will you please tell nie in your next number of the Geologist, how I 
may get animals out of delicate univalve shells, such as Helix, Lymnaja, &c. ? 
In the roofs of coal-mines, there are many large nodular iron-stones, in which 
are many shells very like Ammonites, i.e., they are spiral, but much thinner in 
the middle than at the edges, and when ground down do not show any septa like 
Ammonites ; what are they ? When is the best time of the year to collect shells ? 
My work on conchology gives no instruction to beginners, hence these questions ; 
it is Capt. Thos. Brown's Land and Freshwater shells." — 8. H., Huddersfield. — As 
other sciences besides geology are embraced in the study of the earth, we reply to 
this query respecting living shells, and partly, also, because whenever information 
respecting recent animals or plants has a tendency to elucidate geological investi- 
gations, we shall not deem such questions irrevalent, as they will enable us to 
make suggestions, of more or less value, in their elucidation. The best instrument 
for extracting molluscous animals from their shells is an ordinary needle firmly 
inserted in a penholder or cylindrical stick, and afterwards bent or " hooked" 
in the flame of a spirit-lamp. The best time of the year to collect shells is in the 
late autumn, when the annual or periodic addition of shell-matter has been 
completed and soHdified — the new portions in their early stages being gelatinous 
