518 Geological Society. 



the tide, Mr. Lyell reminds his readers of the fact that in the United 

 States, as in Saxony and Cheshire, the tracks in sandstone and shale 

 are accompanied by littoral appearances, as ripple-marks, the casts 

 of cracks in the clay, and often by the marks of rain. 



In regard to the age of the red sandstone of the valley of the 

 Connecticut and New Jersey, the author states he has nothing 

 to add to what had been previously advanced, by which its position 

 had been shown to be between the carboniferous and cretaceous 

 series. In the neighbourhood of Durham, Connecticut, he had col- 

 lected in the sandstone, fishes of the genera Palreoniscus and Cato- 

 pterus, but no other organic remains, except fossil wood. 



In conclusion, Mr. Lyell remarks, 1st, that the Ornithichnites of 

 Connecticut should teach extreme caution in inferring the non- 

 existence of land animals from the absence of their remains in con- 

 temporaneous marine strata ; 2ndly, that when this red sandstone of 

 Connecticut was deposited, there was land in the immediate vici- 

 nity of the places where the Ornithichnites occur ; and that but for 

 them it might naturally be inferred that the nearest land was several 

 miles distant, namely, that of the hypogene rocks which bound the 

 basin of the Connecticut. Now, the land that caused the sea-beach, 

 Mr. Lyell says, must have been formed of the same sandstone which 

 was then in the act of accumulating, in the same manner as where 

 deltas are advancing upon the sea. 



In a postscript, Mr. Lyell states, that subsequently to writing the 

 paper he had read the luminous report of Mr. Vanuxem on the Or- 

 nithichnites described by Prof. Hitchcock, and though it agrees in 

 substance with his own account in some particulars, yet that he has 

 left his notice as it stood. 



7. The following notice by Captain Pringle respecting the Ochil 

 Hills : — 



A gentleman resident in the district had often remarked the oc- 

 currence of sounds, which appeared to him to be subterranean, but 

 which the country people attributed to noises from the river Divan, or 

 to the machinery of iron-works some miles distant. At the time 

 of the earthquake, however, which was felt at Comrie in October 

 1840, he was on the hill and heard a loud noise like the rushing of 

 steam through a cavern, and the same noise was heard also by others 

 two to three miles distant. On inquiry he ascertained that the noise 

 was contemporaneous with the earthquake, and that the machinery 

 at the iron-works was at that moment not in action. 



The Gaelic word ochain or ochail signifies moaning, howling, wailing 

 (Armstrong's Dictionary) ; and hence it is inferred that the name of 

 the " Moaning Hills " may have been given to the range from the 

 sounds so frequently heard in the district ; and further, that the sounds 

 are connected with the earthquakes felt in the neighbourhood, near 

 Crief and Comrie. [On these Earthquakes see Phil. Mag. S. 3. vol. 

 xx. p. 240.] 



November 2, 1842. — On the Geology of the Western States of 

 North America. By David Dale Owen, M.D., of Indiana*. 



* Abstracts of this and of other papers on the Geology and Palaeonto- 



