FOSSILIFEROUS HAEMATITE NODULES IN LEICESTERSHIRE. 97 
aid of candles, &c. The burnisher-miner, or rather hunter, 
carried a small hand-hammer about with him with which he 
tested every ore pebble for soundness as he proceded with his 
work. The grinding and getting-up of the stones for the 
trade was and is still carried on at Measliam; the process 
being for many years kept very secret, a single individual 
having the monopoly of the business. At the Great Exhi¬ 
bition of 1851 this man obtained a prize for bloodstone 
burnishers. 
6.—In concluding this paper I wish to draw the reader’s 
particular attention to the following points above referred to, 
as I think they deserve in some respects a closer investigation 
than it has been possible for me to give them :— 
1st.—It must be from a carefully conducted examination 
of the haematite, and especially of the associated rock 
fragments in the Permian breccia, that the locality or 
localities whence they were derived can be fixed. This is 
an important question for solution.* 
2nd.—Our enquiries result in showing that a metallic 
mineral of very high qualities and of great purity is not 
necessarily devoid of fossils, or conversely that coal-measure 
fossils do not necessarily occur only in rocks composing those 
measures. 
3rd.—That the coal measures have indirectly furnished us 
with a class of ore, the peculiar properties of which make it of 
special commercial value. 
4tli.—That external appearances in regard to these nodules, 
as in many other things, goes for very little, the water-worn 
aspect of them being very deceptive. 
5th.—These stones afford an almost unique example of 
the process of pseudomorphism, or of the extent to which 
chemical action has gone on within a rock bed or a contained 
rock fragment, an instance, I take it, of actual movement of 
inorganic matter having taken place within a stratum or rock 
mass at rest, an instance also of the growth of a mineral in 
weight and in density though not in bulk. The whole series 
of stones afford us a very instructive example of the way in 
which a mineral, or rather a combination of minerals, pass by 
imperceptible gradations from the most earthy stage to a 
metallic mineral of nearly chemical purity. 
* Since this article was written the author has been engaged in the 
collection of a series of these rock-fragments, a microscopic examination 
of which has been kindly made by Prof. Bonney, F.R.S., and he reports 
to me that he has detected fragments of rocks in them which he believes 
do not occur above ground anywhere in the country. We are still 
working at these most interesting fragments.—W. S. G. 
