There is a pleasure to an intelligent mind in discovering the origin, or tracing the past history, of any natural object as revealed in its structure and growth. It is thus that the study of trees and plants, ferns and field flowers, occupies and delights us. And a similar interest would be found to attach to Seaside Pebbles, as one branch of mineralogy, if we could once come to observe and understand them.

But while the marine shells of England have been all numbered and classified, and even the seaweeds are emerging out of dim confusion into the order of botanical arrangement, there is no popular work extant on the subject of our pebbles.

Dr. Mantell, indeed, published an elegant little volume, entitled “Thoughts on a Pebble;” but he therein treats of a single species, the Choanite; whereas, we have other fossil creatures beside Choanites preserved in the heart of siliceous pebbles; and our shores yield from time to time varieties of agate and jasper, differing from the oriental, and some of them of great beauty.

In the present treatise, an attempt has been made to commend this subject to more general attention, by grouping together many scattered facts and methodizing the results. Learned disquisitions and technical terms have been as much as possible avoided; but in the concluding chapters, sundry interesting points in natural philosophy bearing upon the subject are handled rather more scientifically; and here, some original matter will be found.

The coloured plates are after drawings by a well-known and ingenious artist;[1] the original specimens being in my own collection. They have been carefully and faithfully executed, and are on the same scale as the pebbles themselves.

If this essay of mine should induce any one possessed of ampler leisure and more adequate powers to enter more largely upon the merits of the theme, I shall be indeed gratified.

J. G. FRANCIS.

Isle of Wight, 1859.

BEACH RAMBLES, ETC., ETC.