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There was a clergyman named Henslow, now with God, honoured by all scientific men, a kind friend and teacher of mine, loved by every little child in his parish. His calling was botany: but he knew something of geology. And some of these Coprolites were brought him as curiosities, because they had fossils in them.
I want to know about Coprolites, if they dig them here, as they do at Cambridge. I don't think they do. But I suspect they will some day. But why do people dig them? Because they are rational men, and want manure for their fields. But what are Coprolites?
Nay, in these times even agriculture, to be profitably carried on, must have like guidance. The analysis of manures and soils; the disclosure of their respective adaptations; the use of gypsum or other substance for fixing ammonia; the utilisation of coprolites; the production of artificial manures all these are boons of chemistry which it behoves the farmer to acquaint himself with.
Not unfrequently there are layers of these coprolites, at different depths in the Lias, at a distance from any entire skeletons of the marine lizards from which they were derived; "as if," says Sir H. De la Beche, "the muddy bottom of the sea received small sudden accessions of matter from time to time, covering up the coprolites and other exuviae which had accumulated during the intervals."
"What are Coprolites?" Carmina asked, trying to inform herself on the subject of her aunt's distinctions. Still good-humoured, but with an effort that began to appear, Mrs. Gallilee lowered herself to the level of her niece. "Coprolites," she explained, "are the fossilised indigestions of extinct reptiles.
At their feet, everywhere, run the rich pastures on which the Wiltshire cheese is made; and here and there, as at Westbury, there is good iron-ore in the greensand, which is being smelted now, as it used to be in the Weald of Surrey and Kent ages since. I must tell you about that some other time. But are there Coprolites here?
They seem, somehow, to be fully persuaded that the inspired word of God has no inherent power to stand alone, that it has fallen among thieves and robbers, is being pelted with fossil coprolites, suffocated with fire-mist and primitive gases, or beaten over the head with the shank-bones of Silurian monsters, and is bawling aloud for assistance.
Similar coprolites are found and mined in other districts of England, but they are of inferior quality, containing more oxide of iron and alumina. These give the tribasic phosphate of lime, which results from the application of sulphuric acid to the nodules, a tendency to "go back" to the insoluble condition. French nodules are of inferior quality from another cause.
If therefore the flint knives had not been very widely dispersed, and if one of them had not been at the bottom of the bone-earth, close to the leg of the bear above described, their antiquity relatively to the extinct mammalia might have been questioned. No coprolites were found in the Brixham excavations, and very few gnawed bones.
Holley calculates that it equals about 150 tons of bituminous coal, such as is found in the Pittsburg region. In England the favorite source of phosphates of lime is the "Cambridge coprolites." These are small, hard, gray nodules, obtained by washing a stratum, of about one foot in thickness, lying in the upper greensand formation in Cambridgeshire.
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