Systematic List of the Frederick E Edwards Collection of British Oligocene and Eocene Mollusca in the British Museum (Natural History); with References to the Type Specimens from similar Horizons contained in other Collections belonging to the Geological Departmnent of the Museum

Abstract

THE interest which attaches to the records of past periods of our earth's history is greatly enhanced when we find them in the strata forming the very ground beneath our feet. Such is the explanation of the origin of the well-known Edwards Collection of Eocene Mollusca, which forms the subject of the volume before us. Mr. Frederick Edwards resided at Hampstead some fifty years ago, at a time when the Primrose Hill tunnel of the London and North-Western Railway was formed, and the Archway Road, Highgate, had lately been cut, and, later still, the Great Northern tunnel under Copenhagen Fields. These, and many brick-field excavations in the north of London, led to the discovery of abundant fossil-remains around his residence, and attracted the attention not only of Mr. Edwards, but of Dr. Bowerbank, Mr. Wetherell, Prof. John Morris, Mr. Searles V. Wood and his son, Mr. Sowerby, Mr. White, Mr. Page, and other geologists living in Highbury, Highgate, Hampstead, and Kentish Town, who formed among themselves a small Naturalists' Society, known as the “London Clay Club,” the members of which met periodically at each other's houses, to compare and exchange specimens, and to name the fossils they had discovered in the London clay. Mr. Wetherell, Dr. Bowerbank, and Mr. Frederick Edwards made most extensive collections; but, whilst Wetherell and Bowerbank collected from the London Clay, the Chalk, and other formations, Mr. Frederick Edwards devoted all his attention to the Mollusca of the London Clay and other Tertiary beds of the south-east of England. All his summer holidays. were spent in such spots as the New Forest (where, at Brockenhurst, Bramshaw, Lyndhurst, and many other spots, assisted by Mr. Henry Keeping, he opened numer ous trial-pits), or at Barton and Hordwell on the coast of Hampshire, Colwell Bay, Headon Hill, Osborne, Hempsted, Bembridge in the Isle of Wight, and Bracklesham Bay, Sussex. He collected at all these places, and carefully recorded the localities from whence his specimens were derived. With infinite care he mounted and named these delicate Tertiary shells, and the beautiful specimens so prepared have been preserved in their entirety in the National Museum.

Systematic List of the Frederick E. Edwards Collection of British Oligocene and Eocene Mollusca in the British Museum (Natural History); with References to the Type Specimens from similar Horizons contained in other Collections belonging to the Geological Departmnent of the Museum.

By Richard Bullen Newton Pp. xxviii. and 365, with a large Folding Table. (London: Printed by order of the Trustees. Sold by Longmans and Co.; Quaritch; Dulau and Co.; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co.; and at the Natural History Museum. 1891.)