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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
The earlist, and almost the only published, notice of the ‘Bridlington Crag’ is contained in a single page of London's ‘Magazine of Natural History’ for 1835, vol. viii. p. 355, entitled ‘A Short Account of an Interesting Deposit of Fossil Shells at Burlington Quay, by Mr. William Bean.’ Writing from Scarbro’ on March 30th, Mr. Bean states that ten days previously he had made a geological excursion to ‘Burlington Quay,’ when Mr. Walter Wilson, an intelligent lapidary of that place, directed his attention to a deposit of fragile and broken shells, which the late high tides had exposed on the north side of the harbour, and near the pleasure-ground called the Esplanade. On arriving at the spot, he found a heterogeneous mass, only a few yards long, and as many high, composed of sand, clay, marine shells, and pebbles of every description, chalk and flint being most abundant. The colour and appearance of this shelly bed resembled London Clay, but the fossils had the character of those found in the Crag formation. It would be necessary to collect a greater number of species than he had then obtained, and to exercise much caution before the geological position of the bed could be truly determined; but of this much he was certain, that the shells were coeval with, if not of higher antiquity than the Crag. More than half of them could not be referred to any existing species. The writer concluded by mentioning that he had already made a second visit to the place, in company with Dr. Murray, and reaped an abundant harvest.
page 50 note * Prof. Sedgwick informs me by letter (June 10) that his paper, in which the Bridlington shell-beds are mentioned, was published in the Annals of Philosophy for 1826. He collected a good many of the shells, and might have easily filled a wheelbarrow with them at the time of his visit in 1821. But owing to their extreme fragility, and bad packing, the specimens did not even get so far as Scarboro’ in safety.
page 50 note † Geology of Yorkshire, 1835, p. 40.Google Scholar
page 50 note ‡ See Appendix to this paper by Prof. T. Eupert Jones.
page 51 note * Mr. Bean speaks of the Turbo as ‘a fine pearly shell;’ by which Mr. Leckenby thinks Margarita elegantissima was intended.
page 51 note † The principal portion of Mr. Bean's collection is now in the British Museum; the rest is in the Philosophical Institution at York.
page 52 note * The list by Mr. James Smith of Jordan Hill was not sent to me until it was in type, and although I did as much to it as was possible under the circumstances, it still retains many inaccuracies and obscurities.
page 52 note † The shells found by the Rev. T. Brown at Elie, in Forfarshire, include fire sorts not hitherto met with in the Clyde deposits. Nearly half these Elie shells are Arctic species.
page 53 note * The species marked with an * are in the cabinet of Mr. Leckenby; the rest are represented in the British Museum.
