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HEATH, BEDS.

A number of geologists were interested in the occurrence of fossils and, whilst there was no reference to them actually being exploited as a resource, they were found in the Shenley Hill sand pits, one and a half miles N. of Leighton Buzzard. In fact a local historian, Ivan O‘Dell reported, ”There are some people, who as boys at Heath and Reach used to throw bits of coprolite on the school fire-a sure way of removing the master whose privilege it was to warm his backside thereat. There was a certain explosive quality about it.” (I. J. O‘Dell in Beds. Mag. A Vanished Industry‘, 1951; Jukes-Brown, ”The Cretaceous Rocks of Great Britain,• Mem.Geol.Surv. 1881, p286; G. W. Lamplugh & J. F. Walker, A Lower Greensand Fossiliferous Band‘, 1903.