GEOLOGY. 317 



beds of trap, both above and below. Now since this fern is found in Europe 

 only in the upper part of the Trias and the lower part of the Lias, it is very 

 probable that it occupies the same geological position here. If so, we ascer- 

 tain the existence of a zone of rock in the Connecticut valley not far from the 

 junction of the Lias and Trias. And since two measurements of sections 

 across this valley show a thickness of sandstone strata both above and below 

 this zone thicker than the Lias and Trias of Europe, the probability seems 

 very strong- that the equivalent of both of these rocks exist here, and perhaps 

 some others both newer and older. 



At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor 

 Jeffries TTyman exhibited some fossil bones from the sandstone of the Con- 

 necticut valley. They had been examined twenty-five years ago, and 

 were recognized as bones by Mr. Ellsworth. Fifteen or sixteen specimens 

 had been recently sent him for examination, but they were mostly in very 

 small fragments. Only one or two give any clew to the nature of the animals 

 to which they belonged : but one, which he exhibited, he had found to be a 

 vertebra, with portions of other vertebras in front of and behind it. This vertebra 

 presented two important features, viz., transverse process and an inferior spin- 

 ous process. This proved the bone to have belonged to a higher class of ani- 

 mals than fishes. A concave extremity and other markings make it pretty 

 evidently correspond to the vertabra of a reptile, possibly to an anterior caudal 

 vertebra of a Saurian. In one or two specimens, a transverse section pre- 

 sented a large cavity surrounded by a thin wall rather resembling the bone of 

 a bird than that of any other animal. The greatest improbability connected with 

 the subject is, that the remains of birds and reptiles should be found mingled 

 together in the same formation. They are certainly not mammal, but Dr. 

 Wyman has not much hesitancy in pronouncing some of them reptilian. 



During the latter part of the year 1855, in some excavations made at 

 Springfield, Mass., on the east side of the Connecticut river, in the red sand- 

 stone, portions of the skeleton of a vertebrate animal were discovered. The 

 bones were the most entire of any hitherto met with in the sandstone rocks 

 of this valley. Their character has not, however, as yet been determined. 

 Accompanying these bones were numerous plant impressions, evidently fucoidal 

 in their nature. 



OX THE CHARACTER OF SOME LIGXITES. 



At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor 

 Rogers exhibited two specimens of lignite, one from the middle secondary 

 rocks of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and the other from the coal-bearing 

 rocks of Eastern Virginia. 



These specimens are interesting, not only as examples of the beautiful 

 preservation of woody structure in lignite, but as affording additional evi- 

 dence of the close relationship between the groups of strata in which they are 

 respectively found. Both specimens are jet black, and, when broken trans- 

 versely to the fiber of the wood, present the smooth, conchoidal fracture, and 

 the luster of anthracite coal. The longitudinal surfaces exhibit the structure 



