BEACH RAMBLES
IN SEARCH OF
SEASIDE PEBBLES
AND
CRYSTALS.
WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE
DIAMOND AND OTHER PRECIOUS STONES.
BY
J. G. FRANCIS.
LONDON:
ROUTLEDGE, WARNE, AND ROUTLEDGE,
FARRINGDON STREET;
AND 56, WALKER STREET, NEW YORK.
1859.
INTRODUCTION.
There is a pleasure to an intelligent mind in discoveringthe origin, or tracing the past history, of any naturalobject as revealed in its structure and growth. It is thusthat the study of trees and plants, ferns and field flowers,occupies and delights us. And a similar interest wouldbe found to attach to Seaside Pebbles, as one branch ofmineralogy, if we could once come to observe and understandthem.
But while the marine shells of England have been allnumbered and classified, and even the seaweeds areemerging out of dim confusion into the order of botanicalarrangement, there is no popular work extant on thesubject of our pebbles.
Dr. Mantell, indeed, published an elegant little volume,entitled “Thoughts on a Pebble;” but he therein treatsof a single species, the Choanite; whereas, we have otherfossil creatures beside Choanites preserved in the heartof siliceous pebbles; and our shores yield from time to[iii]time varieties of agate and jasper, differing from theoriental, and some of them of great beauty.
In the present treatise, an attempt has been made tocommend this subject to more general attention, bygrouping together many scattered facts and methodizingthe results. Learned disquisitions and technical termshave been as much as possible avoided; but in the concludingchapters, sundry interesting points in naturalphilosophy bearing upon the subject are handled rathermore scientifically; and here, some original matter willbe found.
The coloured plates are after drawings by a well-knownand ingenious artist;[1] the original specimens being in myown collection. They have been carefully and faithfullyexecuted, and are on the same scale as the pebbles themselves.
If this essay of mine should induce any one possessedof ampler leisure and more adequate powers to entermore largely upon the merits of the theme, I shall beindeed gratified.
J. G. FRANCIS.
Isle of Wight, 1859.
[1] M. W. S. Coleman.
BEACH RAMBLES, ETC., ETC.
CHAPTER I.
ASPECT OF A BEACH, AND ITS PROBABLE ORIGIN.—TRUENATURE OF THE PEBBLES WHICH COMPOSE IT.
I know of few things more pleasant than to ramble for amile along one of our southern beaches in the early daysof autumn. We get the sniff of the sea