Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
During the construction by the Hastings Corporation of a new arterial road to th.e north of St. Leonards, near Silver Hill, not far from the Old Eoar Waterfall, and close to the quarry dubbed by Mantell the “Iguanodon Necropolis”, the cutting passed through some sandy beds of the Wadhurst Clay Series. In these there was one particular stratum that had been a pale blue concretionary calciferous sandstone, but which had been altered for the most part by the percolation of water into a rusty-brown ferruginous sandrock.1 Numerous large, typical concretions occurred in it, but besides these Mr. H. L. Tucker, who was then acting as engineer to the contractors for the work, noticed the presence of certain huge spiral bodies that seemed to differ from the ordinary concretions. These bodies generally lay in cavities, or “moulds” in the surrounding sandstone, but unfortunately no part of these moulds was preserved.
page 242 note 1 See Note by Mr. W. Campbell Smith appended to this article.
page 243 note 1 Moseley, (Rev. H.), “On the Geometrical Forms of Turbinated and Diseoidal Shells”: Phil. Trans., 1838, pp. 351–370. For an able summary of the conclusions by Moseley and others, see Professor D'Arcy W. Thompson's Growth and Form, chap, xi, pp. 493–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 243 note 2 The fossil in question is a cerithoid-like shell about 1½ in. in length, that has been successively referred to:—
Muricites strombiformis, Schlotheim, Petref., i, 1820, p. 144.Google Scholar
Melanopsis ? tricarinata, Sowerby, J. (Ann. Phil., n.s. viii, 1824, p. 376, as Melania tricarinata [n. nud.] and) Trans. Geol. Soc., Ser. II, vol. iv, 1836, p. 346, pi. xxii, f. 4.Google Scholar
Potamides carbonarius, Roemer, A., Nordd. Oolith., 1836, p. 141, pi. xi, f. 17.Google Scholar
Pleuroceras strombiforme, Schloth.: Sandberger, Land- u. Süssw. Conch. Vorwelt, p. 55, 1870, pi. ii, f. 11 a–g.Google Scholar
The genus Muricites, founded by J. Gesner in 1752 (Tract. Petr., p. 34), is pre-Linnean, and though the name appears again in the second edition of his book in 1758 (p. 56), that does not by present ruling render the name valid.
page 246 note 1 As usual in these cases, the generic includes, and should be taken as, the specific description as well.