326 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



jravc fin account of some impressions recently found in the Lnurentian lime- 

 stones. He said these were the lowest rocks in Canada, are from 10.000 to 

 15,000 feet thick, and have always been considered azoic, or devoid of ani- 

 mal life; but, from some specimens shown by the speaker to the audience, he 

 Avas led to think they did show impressions of coral. If these impressions 

 had been found in Silurian, or Metamorphic rocks, they would at once have 

 been referred to the corals. 



Fossil Reindeer from New York. At a meeting of the Philadelphia Ac- 

 ademy, An-us! -.23d, 18-59, Dr. Leidy read a letter from Dr. G. J. Fisher, dated 

 at Sing Sing, New York, giving an account of an antler of the Reindeer, 

 which had been found in the vicinity of the place mentioned. The specimen 

 was discovered, in excavating a peat-bed, at the depth of six feet from the 

 surface. The peat-bed is almost an acre in extent, surrounded by high 

 ground, and looks as if it had been the site of an ancient lake. Dr. L. ob- 

 served that there is a similar specimen of an antler of the Reindeer in the 

 museum of the Academy, which had been found near Yincentown, New 

 Jersey, at the depth of four feet. (See Proc. 18-38, 179.) The discovery of 

 these remains of the Reindeer, and likewise of the remains of the Walrus, 

 in similar positions in New Jersey (See Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., xi. 83), favor 

 the view that the Arctic fauna, at one period, extended its boundary much 

 more southerly than at present. 



On the occurrence of Bones and Teeth in the Lead-bearing Crevices of the 

 North- West. At the meeting of the American Association, 1859, Mr. J. D. 

 Whitney exhibited fossil bones and teeth, found in the lead-bearing crevices 

 of the North- West. In the cap-rock, as it is called by the miners, there are 

 fissures and cavities, from fifty to one hundred feet beneath the surface. 

 These cavities are usually lined with lead-ore ; in them are found the teeth 

 of the mastodon, usually the milk-teeth of the young, also of the peccary, 

 also of the buffalo. The teeth were in a good state of preservation. They 

 are found in many localities the teeth of the mastodon predominating. 

 He believed that this part of the country never was subject to the drift, as 

 no boulders were to be found no striae marks. Mr. J. W. Foster also de- 

 scribed the geological position of the bones of the extinct peccary of the 

 West. They exist on the line of the Burlington and Mississippi Railroad. 

 In a cut on that road he found one skeleton at the depth of eight feet, a sec- 

 ond'at the depth of twenty -five feet, and a third at the depth of twenty-eight 

 feet. 



Eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. During the past year Vesuvius has been in 

 a state of nearly constant activity, without any very great or striking erup- 

 tions. M. Palmieri, who has been engaged in observations on its action, 

 states, among other interesting memoranda, that a great abundance of lead 

 lias been sublimed from the crater and the lava, mainly in the state of 

 chloride. The chloride and sulphate are also found mixed. Much of the 

 volcanic smoke has been found, by M. Palmieri, to be chloriodic acid. 



Sub-Marine Eruption. The barque Rolla, of New York, reports, on the 

 4th of January, in the Gulf of Mexico, passing through a scum of smoking 

 pitch which extended for several miles, and emitted a most nauseating odor. 



OX THE EROSION OF ROCKS IN VERMONT. 



At the Springfield meeting of the American Association for the Promotion 

 of Science, Prof. Hitchcock presented a paper on the evidences of erosion, 



