376 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the trap, which is the equivalent of the oolitic or Jurassic series of Europe, 

 especially the lias. 



2. This belt of sandstone is the equivalent of the lower Jurassic sandstone 

 of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, containing very valuable beds of 

 bituminous coal. 



3. Hence, workable beds of coal may yet be found in the Valley of the 

 Connecticut. 



4. The strata of this sandstone below the Jurassic belt are thick enough 

 to embrace the Triassic and Permean groups, and perhaps even more. 



5. The upper part of this sandstone formation, the coarse conglomerates 

 of Metawampe, may be found to have a place in the rock series higher than 

 the Jurassic. 



INTERESTING DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS. 



At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. 

 Hayes communicated a letter from Dr. C. F. Winslow, containing an ac- 

 count of the discovery of a fragment of a human cranium, one hundred and 

 eighty feet below the surface of Table Mountain, California. The letter, 

 which was accompanied by a portion of the bone in question, says : 



"My friend, Col. Hubbs, whose gold claims in the mountains seem to 

 have given him much knowledge of this singular locality, writes that the 

 fragment was brought up in "pay dirt" (the miners' name for the placer 

 gold drift) of the Columbia chum, and that the various strata passed through 

 in sinking the shaft consist of volcanic formations entirely. Whether his 

 knowledge is accurate touching the volcanic formations, I have some doubt, 

 and have written for more certain information. 



" The mastodon's bones being found in the same deposits points very 

 clearly to the probability of the appearance of the human race, on the west- 

 ern portions of North America at least, before the extinction of those huge 

 creatures. As I have fragments of Mastodon and Elcphas primigenius, or 

 a kindred species, taken between ten and twenty feet below the surface, among 

 the upper placer gold deposits of the same vicinity, it would seem that man 

 was probably contemporary, for a certain period, with the closing dynasties 

 of these formidable races of quadrupeds. This discovery of human and 

 mastodon remans in the same locality, gives also great strength to the possi- 

 ble truth of an old Indian tradition of the contemporary existence of the 

 mammoth and aboriginals in this region of the globe." 



NEW FOSSIL OPHIDIAN. 



At a recent meeting of the London Geological Society, Professor Owen 

 called attention to the remains of a fossil ophidian, obtained near the Bay of 

 Salonica, Greece, from beds of fresh water tertiary. The vertebras were 

 thirteen in number, indicating by their size a serpent of between ten and 

 twelve feet in length. 



Supposing them to have been derived from other parts than the anterior 



