OF FOSSIL FISHES. 199 
the centre of nodules of clay ironstone, that 
abound in a low cliff composed of shale, be- 
longing to the coal formation at Newhaven, 
near Leith. I visited the spot, with this gen- 
tleman and Lord Greenock, in September, 
1834, and found these nodules strewed so 
thickly upon the shore, that a few minutes 
sufficed to collect more specimens than I could 
carry ; many of these contained a fossil fish, or 
fragment of a plant, but the greater number had 
for their nucleus, a Coprolite, exhibiting an 
internal spiral structure ; they were probably 
derived from voracious fishes, whose bones are 
found in the same stratum. These nodules 
take a beautiful polish, and have been ap- 
plied by the lapidaries of Edinburgh to make 
tables, letter presses, and ladies' ornaments, 
under the name of Beetle stones, from their 
supposed insect origin. Lord Greenock has dis- 
covered, between the laminae of a block of coal, 
from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, a mass 
of petrified intestines distended with Coprolite, 
and surrounded with the scales of a fish, which 
Professor Agassiz refers to the Megalichthys. 
This distinguished naturalist has recently as- 
certained that the fossil worm-like bodies, so 
abundant in the lithographic slate of Solen- 
hofen, and described by Count Miinster in the 
Petrefacten of Goldfuss, under the name of 
Lumbricaria, are either the petrified intestines 
