Ochraceous Stinkstein

The formation of this substance, however singular, seems hitherto to have escaped notice. It may nevertheless lead us to a determination in many cases. It might at first be taken for a Coralline; but we have by comparison of specimens convinced ourselves that it is rather an assemblage of funnel-shaped Stalactites formed in a fluid medium, the surface of which has become encrusted at regular intervals, especially around the Stalactite. Although there is a variety of specimens, yet the structure coincides very accurately in many of them. Some indeed are more puzzling to account for than the present. It not uncommonly happens that Stalactites are hollow, (see tab. 6.) and others undulated. They also evidently form a deposit, or case after case, on the outside in a concentric manner. This does not seem to have been formed so; the peculiar state of the substance of which it appears to have been composed, having only a certain quantity of moisture, enough to form a kind of paste, which may have allowed it to have dropped into one mass at more or less regular periods, producing this remarkable appearance. Now, it happens that the spot which produces a variety of these produces also the Botryoidal Stinkstein in great abundance and variety see tab. 38. They are generally found filled with a dusty ochraceous marle, such as would readily allow scattered drops of water to collect it on their surfaces.

I received most of my specimens from my friend N. J. Winch, Esq., who collected them near Sunderland.