292 AXXUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



and five wings of a Blattina have been lately found in the lowest coal 

 of Arkansas. Silliman's Journal. 



Interesting Discovery of new Sauroid Remains in the Coal Forma- 

 tion of Nova Scotia. Mr. O. C. Marsh, of New Haven, has re- 

 cently procured from the coal formation of the Joggins, in Nova 

 Scotia, two Saurian vertebras, of which Agassiz writes as follows : 

 These two vertebra have excited my interest in the highest degree. 

 I have never seen in the body of a vertebra such characters com- 

 bined as are here exhibited. At first sight they might be mistaken 

 for ordinary Ichthyosaurus vertebra ; but a closer examination 

 soon shows a singular notch in the body of the vertebra itself, such as 

 I have never seen in reptiles, though this character is common in 

 fishes. We have here undoubtedly a nearer approximation to a syn- 

 thesis between fish and reptile than has yet been seen ..... 

 The discovery of the Ichthyosauri was not more important than that 

 of these vertebra ; but what would be the knowledge of their exist- 

 ence without the extensive comparisons to which it has led ? Now 

 these vertebra ought to be carefully compared with the vertebra of 

 bony fishes, with those of sauroid fishes, of selachians, of batrachiaus, 

 of the oolitic crococliliaiis, of the newer crocodilians, of the Ichthy- 

 osaurians, and of the Plesiosaurians, and all the points of resem- 

 blance and difference stated; because I do not believe there is a 

 vertebra known thus far in which are combined features of so many 

 vertebra, in which these features appear separately as characteristic 

 of their type. Silliman's Journal. 



DISCOVERY OF A BOXE-BED IX THE SO-CALLED XEY> r RED 

 SAXDSTOXE OF THE ATLAXTIC STATES. 



question in American geology seems more difficult of elucida- 

 tion than the age and geological position of the so-called " New Red 

 Sandstone " of the Atlantic slope ; some geologists referring it to the 

 Oolitic or Liassic periods, others to the Trias, and others still lower, to 

 the Permian. No true Permian forms (fossils) characteristic of that 

 formation have yet been discovered, and the whole system is more- 

 over destitute of beds of rock-salt and gypsum, which characterize 

 mineralogically the Permian system, not only in Russia, but wherever 

 else it has been recognized. During the past year Mr. Charles M. 

 Wheatlcy has called attention for the first time to the existence of a 

 bone-bed laid open by the excavation of a railroad tunnel in the shales 

 and sandstones, of the same age as the so-called American New Red 

 Sandstone, at Phoenixville, Pa. This bone-bed is about six inches 

 thick, and contains abundant fragments of the bones of Saurians. 

 Near the bone-bed is also a micaceous dolomitic sandstone, contain- 

 ing Saurian bones, i. e., part of a jaw seven inches in length, with re- 

 mains probably of batrachian animals, and the scales, teeth, and 

 bones of ganoid fishes. So many teeth of Saurians, indeed, says Mr. 

 Wheatley, have been collected and deposited in this dolomitic sand- 

 stone, that it has the appearance of an osseous (bony) conglomerate. 

 In some instances the casts only of the teeth remain, the substance 

 of the tooth being converted into dolomite, but retaining the exact 

 form of the tooth, with the sulcations as distinct as in the original ; 



