LETTERS FROM JOHN BROWN TO S. P. WOODWARD. 135
valuable list of species which you kindly sent me in your last communica-
tion. It does you very great credit. I have no doubt of its correctness;
and I beg leave to observe and to acknowledge to you that you are among
my most valuable and talented correspondents, if not foremost among
that number. But entre nous; and long may we enjoy each others
friendship without abatement or alloy, even up to the end of the chapter.
With regard to the memoir to the Geol. Society, mentioned
in your last letter, I beg to observe that I have drawn a section already of
the recent cuttings of the Railway which exposed the bed from whence I
collected the shells that compose your list.
In the same sketch, I have represented the Freshwater formation that
underlies the Pleistocene beds in geological order, but is more than a
hundred yards from those beds. From the former I obtained the Valvata
formerly sent, which was, I remember, very soon after that I had discovered
the lucustrine (sic.) deposit.
This position of the strata, you will see by the section, is quite distinct
from the Post Tertiary beds, being cut off from them by the upper bed of
diluvium, which covers the lucustrine beds.
This sketch I could send, accompanied by a short memoir and a pretty
long list of fossils from the deposit of detritus below the Freshwater beds,
which Mr. Sowerby supplied more than two years ago, and which have not
been published heretofore.
My collection of fishes' teeth, which you was so kind as to name for me
as far as you could, I found in this detritus.
As to the corals : an impenetrable mystery hangs over them, but,
if desirable, I could send them, and probably some of the gentlemen present
would recognize some of them.
Or shall I draw up a short memoir on the Pleistocene beds only, to
accompany your list for the Annals? the Freshwater beds being recorded
in that work already? Pray which of the two plans shall I follow?
Mr. I. D. G. Sowerby has had by him for a long time past a variety of
new Foraminifera from the Copford detritus, to be figured; but up to the
present time nothing that I am aware of has been [done] with them.
The work of Professor Ehrenberg was waited for, to see if they cor-
responded with any of his plates ; but I never could find out that that
was the case. I believe his Foraminifera were more minute than mine.
A neighbour of mine, Mrs. Mills (the head of the firm of Mills and Co.,
Bankers), has received an interesting fragment of a fossil Tusk from
Grays, 2 feet 7m. long, 61/4 inches at its largest diameter, and 41/2 at its smaller
one. At the request of that lady, I have mounted it for her, and a fine
specimen it is. I shall be happy to show it you at some future time.
Stanway, Feb. 4th, 1843.
Many thanks to you for your useful hints respecting your list of shells.
The same is also due from me to our excellent friend, Mr. S. Wood, for his
observations, etc.
I have sent you at this time some of the desiderata, by way of complet-
ing the list, and I hope to meet with the remainder by the time I see yon,
if I do not send them before. I have also sent you the Section of that
part of Copford Brick-field in which the beds occur whence the shells
were derived, with a short Memoir to lay before the Geol. Society.
The Teeth and Corals being upon boards, it is difficult tosend them
with the Memoir and Section. But will they be wanted at all ? If so, I
must either send or bring them with me. "I last night met with some
perfect specimens of Aplexus hipnorum [sic] which I beg of you to accept,
with a few more Clausillia [sic]
I send also a few specimens of Cyrena from Grays.
Feb. 10th, 1843.
I have sent more of the desiderata, by way of completing the list, and