BEEKITE. 
13 
the coralsj &c.j in his own district with the same care he took 
with the derived Livermead specimens, he would soon have dis- 
covered scores in situ that were heavily Beekised — while had it 
been known at the time that the neighbouring- county of Somerset 
was in many places in the Meiidips, Dundry Hill, &c., well peppered 
with thousands of Beekised fossils — all in situ — ^the concluding part 
of his paper would have been worded in a very different manner, 
and we should also have been spared the numerous theories and 
speculations of subsequent writers, all more or less founded on the 
supposed ^‘Conglomerate” origin of Beekite ! (It is but fair, 
however, to these writers to point out that most of their papers 
were written 40 or 50 years ago, when geologists had not the 
same travelling or postal facilities that we now enjoy. Yet it is 
somewhat surprising that none of them appear to have made any 
attempts to follow^ up the obvious clues given in Pengelly^s paper 
( Philosophical Magazine^ 1862^ voL page 95 J. 
Professor Church (in addition to quoting from Pengelly) says it 
is an interesting problem, being not a mineral merely, but a fossil 
more or less completely mineralized — or again, it is not merely a 
fossil, but an incrustation of Chalcedony upon a nucleus of coral, &c. 
He also notices the tendency to deposition in a circular form seen 
in many varieties of silica. He made several analyses of Beekite, 
of which the following is a rough average-— Silica, 91 to 93 ; Lime 
(as Silicate), 2 to 3 ; Iron, 2 to 2*5 ; Water, i to 2 ; Carbonic Acid 
and Organic Matter, i’5 to 2*5, with traces of other constituents 
such as Phosphates, Iodine, &c. 
Sufficient matter having been quoted from previous papers, it 
may be as well at this point to go on to the fresh evidence which 
has come to hand during the last few years. Some time ago 
while collecting in the Carboniferous of Burrington and other 
sections it was noticed that a large number of the fossils were 
disfigured with circular markings ; on testing with Acid these 
proved to be Beekites ; shortly afterwards similar markings were 
noticed in the Upper Coral Bed of Dundry Hill (classed as 
“ Bathonian,” by Buckman and Wilson). 
Feeling sure from this that there must be more of it about 
than w’as generally thought, it was resolved to circulate specimens 
among friends in various localities, and request them to examine 
their fossils for Beekite. The results were surprising — as no 
sooner was attention called to it, than it began to be found in 
many localities (notably in Antrim — where Mr. R. Bell discovered 
numerous fine specimens in the Chloritic Sands). These discoveries, 
added to our local researches, enabled the following provisional 
list of localities to be drawn up. With the exception of those 
found in the Permian Conglomerates, all these are on fossils, 
found in situ^ and in the formation or zone to which they belong. 
This list alone should effectually disprove the theory that Beekites 
can only occur in conglomerates ! 
