THE GEOLOGIST. 
FEBRUARY 1863. 
TURTLES IN THE STONESFIELD SLATE. 
By the Editor. 
Some time since, a gentleman handed me, at one of the meetings of 
the Geologists' Association, a bone from the Stonesfield slate. Un- 
fortunately the label attached to the specimen has been accidentally 
lost, and consequently I can neither give due credit to its owner for 
his find nor return the specimen to him as I would wish to do, as his 
name and address are both thus unknown to me. 
The nature of the specimen was very evident, at the first glance, 
to any practised palaeontologist. It is a bone that is peculiarly cha- 
racteristic of a peculiar class of reptiles which, at the present day, 
comprises the tortoises, terrapins, and turtles. In short, it is the 
coracoid bone of some member of the family Chelonia. 
Our evidences of this order of reptiles, in strata of Mesozoic age, 
are few and far between ; but Chelonian remains are rare in the 
Chehjs (?) Blakii (n. s.), from the Stonesfield slate. 
Secondary beds, chiefly by reason that many of our most productive 
localities are neglected to be well worked. 
The impressions, probably referable to Chelonian animals, which we 
bave in the Triassic sandstones of Corncockle Muir, are at least 
doubtful, and we shall not insist upon them as evidences here. In 
VOL. TI. G 
