306 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



relics of former ages, buried in sedimentary deposits. The oils of Northern 

 Pennsylvania come up through rocks below the coal measures, and which 

 are older than the carboniferous limestones, which in this locality constitute 

 the surface rocks. 



At the meeting of the American Association, 1800, Professor J. D. Whit- 

 ney called attention to the fact that these oils had been obtained from the 

 Hudson river group of the Silurian rocks, in which few or no vegetable 

 remains occur, thus leading to the inference that the oils may be entirely of 

 animal origin. 



Mr. W. Denton, a geologist of Painesville, Ohio, from a careful investiga- 

 tion of the subject, also comes to the conclusion that these oils have in 

 many instances an animal origin, and that they have especially been derived 

 from the substance of the coral animals of the Devonian and Silurian epoch. 

 He says, in a note to the editor : 



"I have large specimens of fossil coral, the cells of which are filled with 

 pure Seneca or Rock oil, some of them obtained more than a hundred miles 

 from a coal region. I have seen hundreds of corals full of this oil, and 

 these corals in the centre of limestone blocks, bearing no trace of oil any- 

 where except in the cells of the coral. I have seen the coral reef through 

 which a creek has run, thus exposing it to the air, and from this reef the oil 

 was flowing; oil having that distinctive smell which once smelled is never 

 forgotten. It is my opinion, therefore, that the oil comes from coral reefs, 

 lying probably in some cases two or three thousand feet below the sur- 

 face. The coral cells having been crushed by the pressure of the superin- 

 cumbent rocks, the oil has been forced out and collected in various crevices 

 and reservoirs in the strata." 



INTERESTING PAL^EONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN NEW ENGLAND. 



At the meeting of the American Association for 1860, Professor W. B. 

 Rogers gave an account of the recent discovery, by Mr. Norman Easton, of 

 fossils in the conglomerate of Taunton River, Massachusetts. Mr. Easton 

 had also found fossils in the pebbles forming part of the conglomerate 

 boulders about Fall River. In company with Mr. Easton, he had traced this 

 conglomerate to its beds in Dighton, where they had found fossils in the 

 pebbles in situ. Similar fossils had also been found in the conglomerate 

 about Newport, R. I., and they seem to be allied to the Lingulaprima of the 

 Potsdam sandstone. This was opening a new field of fossils. 



Colonel Foster said that he had little doubt that this was the Lingula of 

 the Potsdam sandstone. He had no doubt that the Potsdam sandstone 

 existed in New England, covered, perhaps, by the waters of the ocean. The 

 geological survey of New England was yet to be made. He believed that 

 the palaeozoic rocks would be found on the Atlantic slope in full series. 



Professor Rogers thought they would be found sporadically in many 

 poi'tions of New England: but so enormous had been the extent of the 

 denudation that he feared that in no place could the continuous series be 

 found. 



Professor Agassiz thought the specimens were sufficient for a comparison 

 with the fossils of the Porsdam sandstone. The discoA r ery of the Paradox- 

 ides corrected one general statement, that the conglomerates of New Eng- 

 land were of the Carboniferous period. This was another step in the same 

 direction, and a very interesting one. 



