CORRESPONDENCE.
Northampton Sands.
Dear Sir,—The November number of your valuable journal contains a paper by Mr. J. H. Macalister, on "The Fossils of North Bucks and the adjacent Counties," in which, I believe, reference is made to myself in the following passage, page 481:—"The identity of the Northampton Sands (formerly classed with the lias) with the Stonefield Slate of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and constituting the lower zone of the Great Oolite;" and in a note it is added, "so classed by Dr. Wright, being separated by him from the inferior oolite, which they formerly were supposed to represent."
To this statement I have simply to say, that Mr. Macalister is altogether incorrect, as I have nowhere classed the Northampton Sands with the lias, nor made any reference to them. If that gentleman will refer to my memoir on "The Palæontological and Stratigraphical Relation of the so-called Sands of the Inferior Oolite" (Quart. Journal of the Geol. Soc. vol. xii. p. 292), for 1856, he will find a full statement of the case, as regards the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Dorset, but no reference whatever to Northampton; and in the preface to my 'Monograph on the Oolitic Echinodermata,' p. ix., he will find it stated that "in every instance, with the exception of the Northamptonshire beds, which have been carefully noted by my friend, the Rev, A. N. Griesbach, I have visited the localities given in this work," but in no part of that monograph has my friend referred the Northampton Sands to the lias. Mr. Macalister has been therefore altogether misinformed on this subject. I submit that it ought to be a rule with gentlemen furnishing papers to the valuable pages of the 'Geologist,' in every case to refer to the original articles from which they quote.
Yours most truly,