3 
Quarterly Meeting, October 20th, 1857. 
W. Fairs A iRN, F.R.S., &c.. President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Spence brought before the Society some specimens 
of coprolites. For the last two to three years considerable 
quantities of these fossils have been collected in various parts 
of Norfolk and Suffolk, near the coast. More recently a new 
deposit of them has been found in Cambridgeshire, which 
promises to be of considerable importance to agriculturists 
and a source of great profit to the localities. A vast fen runs 
from Lynn in Norfolk up to Cambridge, a distance of at least 
fifty miles ; a great proportion of this fen is artificially drained 
by steam power and is under cultivation. From one to two 
feet of the surface is black peat overlying a deposit of marl, 
locally named clunch ; this is chiefly a friable body, but in 
some localities so indurated as to be used for building, but 
this seems rare. The marl is from three to six feet deep and 
covers the bed or vein containing the coprolites, this is a 
sandy or loamy clay with the fossils irregularly interspersed ; 
it varies from six inches to three feet in thickness, is level on 
its surface, but at bottom forms a series of pockets running 
down into the clay which forms its bed ; when working for 
coprolites all this vein is thrown out and subjected to washing 
to extract the fossils. The locality from which the specimens 
of the vein and fossils were obtained was the village of 
Burwell, twelve miles from Cambridge, and on the estate of 
E. Ball, Esq., M.P., for Cambridgeshire. Here the fen is 
already studded over with the diggings and washing appara- 
tus, the population 'all actively engaged, and wages usually at 
or under twelve shillings per week are advanced to fifteen 
shillings, and parties working by piece are earning twenty 
shillings per week. Thousands of tons will be extracted 
before the ensuing Spring, the season of chief demand for the 
fossils for artificial manure. These coprolites are very rich, 
one analysis by a Liverpool chemist giving over seventy per 
