342 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



by the destruction of many southern species and the introduction of many 

 northern forms, which had hitherto been confined to the Arctic Ocean. 



ON THE FOSSILS OF DURA DEN, SCOTLAND. 



Dura Den is a small valley in the northeastern district of Fifeshire, Scot- 

 land, which has long been classic ground with British geologists, both on 

 account of the lithological character of the Devonian sandstones there 

 developed, and the number of fossil remains found in them. These last 

 belong almost exclusively to that class of ganoid heterocercal fishes, the 

 presence of which is so distinguishing a characteristic of the Devonian 

 epoch. 



The following extract from a monograph of the fossils of Dura Den, by 

 the Rev. John Anderson of Scotland, published during the past year, will 

 convey some idea both of the number and of the extraordinary state of 

 preservation in which the fossils of this deposit are not unfrequently 

 found : 



" The remains of these fishes are so very abundant in the yellow sandstone 

 deposit of Dura Den, that a space of little more than three square yards, 

 when the writer was present, yielded about a thousand fishes, most of them 

 perfect in their outline, the scales and fins quite entire, and the forms of the 

 creatures often starting freely out of their hard stony matrix, in their com- 

 plete armature of scale, fin, and bone. This peculiarity of entireness, and 

 even of freshness, in these olden denizens of the waters, is so remarkable, 

 that, when first exposed to view in the newly split-up rock, there is a life- 

 like glistering over the clear, shining, scaly forms, so that one can scarcely 

 divest himself of the idea that, instead of the innumerable series of geologic 

 terms to be counted, he is looking actually upon the creations of yesterday, 

 the relics of things that had just ceased to breathe. 'Here is a living one! ' 

 exclaimed a workman, as he raised from the bed of a river a large flag- 

 stone, in which were counted upwards of fifty fishes, one preeminently full, 

 beautiful and rounded in its form. Indeed, the most splendid representa- 

 tions of an Audubon, a Gould, or a Landseer, on their glossy canvas, will 

 shrink in comparison beside these pictures of nature-painting, brighter than 

 the dyes of the artist, as set in their stony tablets, and contrasting finely 

 with the rich saffron-colored rock, in which, uninjured and unstained, they 

 have hung for ages." 



EARTHQUAKE IN NEW ENGLAND AND CANADA. 



One of the most severe shocks of an earthquake experienced for many 

 years in the northern portions of the United States, and in Canada, occurred 

 on the morning of October 17, 1860. In the northern part of Vermont the 

 motion was sufficient to jar open fastened doors, ring the church bells, and 

 in one case, at Northfield, Vt., a church spire was thrown out of position by 

 the force of the shock, and in another, at Brattleboro', a house was cracked 

 in two. In the vicinity of Quebec, the shock was also sufficiently powerful 

 to occasion much alarm and produce some injury. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE "TACONIC SYSTEM." 



Prof. E. Emmons, in his geological survey of Lake Champlain, as far back 

 as 1838, recognized below the Potsdam sandstone a scries of strata, which he 



