William Buckland

Name: On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk
Author: William Buckland

On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

Summary

“On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk”, published in 1817, is a work by William Buckland. It explores elements such as chalk, flint and Paramoudra.

Quotes from On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (William Buckland)

William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ The present shape of many chalk flints being that of organic bodies, demonstrates the latter to have existed before the consolidation of the former; for the fidelity with which the silex has often copied the organization, and even the accidents and irregularities of the bodies enveloped, is so accurate, that it is impossible to attribute the form of the flint to any other cause than that of the body on which it was deposited. Sometimes the organization is so delicately retained, that it seems not to have undergone the smallest derangement before the siliceous cast was taken ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ The solution of the latter question may be, that different genera of organic remains afforded centers that attracted the silex with unequal force, and that this will in some degree explain the phenomenon so common in the chalk formation, that bodies allied to the genus spunge and alcyonium, are most frequently preserved in flint and chalcedony, whilst shells and other bodies, which in their natural state were more calcareous, generally have their form retained by chalk or calcareous spar. ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ I allude particularly to those agates in which there are no traces of any funnel through which the matter of the concentric zones could have been introduced; and to those chalcedonic geodes in the basalt of the Giant's Causeway, in which also no sign of a funnel can be discovered, but the component laminæ are disposed in parallel lines, crossing horizontally the cavity in which they are contained, and sometimes filling only the lower region of it. ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ As to such of these concretions (whether insulated or disposed in strata) to which no extraneous nucleus can be discovered, it is not easy to say what determined their centres of attraction. But it does not appear possible that they could have been formed by infiltration into pre-existing cavities, like the irregularly disseminated geodes of the trap rocks; since this hypothesis in the case of chalk would imply the anomaly of there having once existed, extending uniformly over many hundred square miles, as many strata of air bubbles as there are of flint alternating with the chalk ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ The chief difference appears to be, that in the case of the chalk formation, the nodular arrangement of the siliceous strata very much predominates, and in the other cases the siliceous strata, though occasionally nodular (as at Poligny) , yet most frequently are disposed in continuous or nearly continuous flat masses; though even these sometimes pass into imperfectly lenticular and tuberous concretions. The existence of insulated siliceous concretions irregularly disseminated through limestone, is common to almost all calcareous strata in which there is any admixture mixture of silex ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ It is probable that in cases where the body perished rapidly, there was not time for this process of gradual substitution, and that flinty matter of nearly the same coarse quality with the outer crust, was introduced hastily into the void spaces that were left unoccupied by the rapid decay of the animal nucleus. ”

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William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ The substance of the septa dividing the cells does not exceed in thickness that of the finest paper, and appears to be silex much iron-shot; the cells are filled with silex of the same colour with the mass that envelopes them, and display no traces of radii or fibres traversing their interior. This small cluster of cells was decidedly inclosed in the body, and within the crust of a Paramoudra, extending inwards, not an inch from the epidermis. ”

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Source: Wikisource

William Buckland, On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (1817)

“ Bruce of Belfast, a still more perfect specimen from Moira has been deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. [2]
The usual forms of these bodies are modifications of those drawn, more or less elongated or compressed. No two of them are to be found exactly alike in all their proportions. ”

William Buckland

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Quotes from On the Paramoudra, and Formation of Flints in Chalk (William Buckland)

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