By the Rev. WILLIAM BUCKLAND,
member of the geological society,
and professor of mineralogy in the university of oxford
Among the organic remains of the chalk in the North of
Ireland, are large siliceous bodies of a very peculiar character, which
I believe have not hitherto been described, and of which the annexed
drawing, copied from a sketch I made of them as they appeared
four years ago in some chalk pits near Moira, will give a
more correct idea than can be conveyed by any description.[1]
These singular fossils are found in many of the chalk pits from Moira to Belfast and Larne, (see the Map, pl. 8, vol. 3, of the Geol. Trans.) but are most numerous at Moira. They are known at Belfast by the name of Paramoudra, a word which I could trace to no authentic source, but shall adopt because I find it thus appropriated. They have, I believe, never yet been found in the chalk of England, except at Whitlingham near to Norwich, and at some other places in the same neighbourhood, from whence there is a good specimen in the collection of the Geological Society, equal in size to the largest I have seen in Ireland, being about two feet long
- ↑ Plate 24, No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.