12 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. II. 
examining the then unknown extent of the various strata, 
and colouring the results on Carey’s large map of England. 
Other journeys followed in annual succession. Thus 
in 1813 Buckland, adopting the true Wykehamical fashion 
of going two and two, made a tour with his friend Mr. W. 
Conybeare in Ireland. In collaboration with his travelline 
companion, he published his first important paper— <£ On 
the Coasts of the North of Ireland.” Among the organic 
remains in many of the chalk pits from Moira to Belfast 
and Larne he discovered some curious siliceous bodies 
known by the name of “ Paramoudra.” This word, which 
he could trace to no authentic source, Dr. Shuttleworth, 
late Warden of New College and Bishop of Chichester, 
contrived to hitch into verse if not into rhyme :— 
“ When granite rose from out the trackless sea, 
And slate, for boys to scrawl—when boys should be— 
But earth, as yet, lay desolate and bare; 
Man was not then,—but Paramoudras were.” 
No two of these curiously shaped pot-stones are exactly 
alike, their length commonly varying from one to two feet 
and their thickness from six to twelve inches. The sub¬ 
stance of these bodies is in all cases flint; in all cases, also, 
they have a central aperture, or pipe passing through their 
long diameter. They are found In different positions : 
sometimes they lie horizontally ; at other times they are 
inclined or erect. Buckland conjectured that the para¬ 
moudra may have possessed a character intermediate 
between a gigantic sponge 1 and an ascidian, and he 
Mr. W. Gray, M.A.F.A , of Mount Charles, Belfast, an authority 
