WILLIAMSON: JOHN WILLIAMSON. 301 
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nodule and lay resting on the soft shale. On other parts of the 
shore, broad expanses of similar shales were almost hidden from 
view by masses of smaller Belemnites, which lay closely packed 
side by side. Such sights as were familiar to my young eyes, are 
no longer to be seen on that coast ; but when my father was young, 
such fossils were yet more abundant. The tidal washing of ages 
had laid them bare, but no one cared to notice, much less to gather 
them. The untutored public only saw "thunderbolts" in the 
Belemnites, and snakes, turned into stone by St. Cuthbert, in the 
Ammonites. These explanations being deemed unquestioned truths, 
nobody was concerned to trouble their heads further about the 
stones, beyond an occasional expression of wonder as to what the 
" snakes " had done with their missing heads. 
At the end of seven years, Mr. Williamson left the service of 
the house of Mulgrave. The Earl, who had married into a family of 
a rank somewhat different from his own, was annoyed by circum- 
stances that had occurred in the gardens. My father knew that some 
young lads, relatives of the Countess, were the offenders on the 
occasion, but he also knew that to denounce them to the Earl, would 
make the Countess his enemy for life. He therefore adopted the wiser 
course of throwing up his appointment and returning to Scarbrough. 
When my father left Scarbrough for Wykeham Abbey, 
William Bean, the future naturalist, took charge of the gardens 
which he had inherited ; but the work accorded neither with his 
tastes nor his talents ; hence he readily availed himself of his 
cousin's return from the North, to engage him as manager of the 
concern. This position he continued to hold up to the time when 
Mr. Bean retired from business. My father then established himself 
as a gardener, taking charge of the gardens of several of the leading 
gentry of the town, whose grounds were not sufficiently extensive 
to require the services of a permanent servant. This work left him 
more freedom than he had hitherto enjoyed, and he devoted his 
increased leisure, to the collection of the fossils and recent shells 
of Eastern Yorkshire. This was not seldom done when wet 
weather made work in the gardens impossible ; fly-fishing 
frequently sharing with fossil-hunting in the use to which he put 
