282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



end of this island dip towards the west, the angle of dip gradually 

 increasing from the highest to the lowest. The identity of species 

 between the fossils and the shell-fish now living on the adjacent shores 

 indicates a similarity of climate at the time they were deposited to 

 the present. An opinion has prevailed among geologists, that at the 

 epoch of the drift the climate was colder than it now is. 



Above the drift, on the surface of the island, boulders have been 

 deposited. It is an interesting inquiry, how they could have attained 

 their present position, above the bed of fossils, without disturbing 

 them. The regularity of the stratum of sand under them, and the 

 character of the climate, as indicated by the shells, are incompatible 

 with an explanation based on the glacial theory. They could hardly 

 have been brought by icebergs, for among them are masses of pud- 

 ding stone, such as exist at Hingham and Roxbury, which rest here 

 at a higher level than their source. Beneath the oyster-bank of Nan- 

 tucket is a stratum of coarse, sandy clay, very much like that at the 

 base of the cliff at Gay Head, which was regarded by Prof. Hitch- 

 cock as a tertiary deposit. It is probable that these two formations 

 are the outcrops of a tertiary basin which passes underneath the 

 two islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and the intervening 

 sea. 



DISCOVERY OF FOSSIL REMAINS IN THE VALLEY OF THE 



CONNECTICUT. 



IN the fall of the year 1848, an interesting discovery of fossil bones 

 was made in the new red sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut, 

 at South Hadley, Mass. The workmen employed in excavating a 

 canal brought to light, at a distance of a few feet below the surface, a 

 nearly perfect skeleton of some unkno\vn animal. Unfortunately, in 

 the absence of the engineer, the bones were all destroyed. The rock 

 in which they occurred is a bluish shale, and contains impressions 

 of plants, grasses, &c. They \vere described, by those who saw 

 them, as of a large size, one of them equalling the leg-bone of a 

 horse. Their loss is highly to be regretted, as they would have 

 probably thrown some light on the nature of the animals whose 

 footprints are found so abundantly on the rocks of the Connecticut 

 valley. Editors. 



FOSSIL CRINOIDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



AT the meeting of the American Association, a paper on the 

 Fossil Crinoids of Tennessee, by Prof. Troost, was read by Prof. 

 Agassiz. These fossiliferous remains were discovered in the carbon- 

 aceous and silurian strata of the State, and show a wonderful devel- 

 opment of that form of animal on the shores during the paleozoic 

 period. Thirty-one genera, sixteen of which are considered by Prof. 

 Troost as new, are enumerated. The species embraced are not less 

 than eighty-eight in number, of which only half a dozen have been 

 described. It is the opinion of Prof. Hall, that all the silurian forma- 



