XXV. Description of the Paramoudra, a singular fossil body that is found in the Chalk of the North of Ireland; with some general Observations upon Flints in Chalk, tending to illustrate the History of their formation.

Abstract

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. * 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 and one foot in diameter. Through the kindness of my learned friend Dr. Bruce of Belfast, a still more perfect specimen from Moira has been deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. * The usual forms of these bodies are modifications of those drawn, more or less elongated or compressed. No two of them are to be found exactly alike in all