ne SEES Whatever um  unorgani: 
258 DISCOVERY OF A WHITE FOSSIL POWDER. 
suppose that similar forms might also be found in the fossil 
state. 
In Silliman's American Journal of Science for October, | 
1838, Professor Bailey states that he found in the neigh- 
bourhood of West Point, State of New York, a deposit of 
white powder, eight or ten inches in thickness, and probably 
several hundred square yards in extent, buried about a foot 
below the surface of a small peat-bog; which, on examination, 
was almost entirely made up of the siliceous shells of infu- 
- Sorial animalcules, among which were a few fragments of 
. vegetable origin. He also found near the same locality, liv- 
ing infusoria in great abundance in small streams and stag- 
: nant pools, and nestling in wet moss on moist rocks; but 
most abundantly in bunches of Confervee, which constitute 
the green slimy matter so abundant in bogs and slow running 
brooks. . 'They were accompanied by great numbers of mi- 
nute parasitical Confervz, by burning off the vegetable matter 
from which, and examining the usbas with a inn microscope» 
numerous siliceous shells, both. of the animalcules and the 
plants were discovered, and were found to be equally un- 
changed by fire or acids. Many of the forms of each were 
observed to be identical with those in the fossil state. The 
knowledge of these curious facts stimulated scientific men to 
examine Modius depositions wherever they might occur; for. 
it was not yet suspected that any thing of a like nature 
existed in Great Britain. 
In the Magazine of Natural History for July last, 1839, 
Dr Drummond of Belfast announced the discovery in Ire- : 
land, of a very light white earthy substance, found in consi- - 
 derable quantity on lowering the waters of Lough Island. 
Reavey, by the Bann Co., “ader a covering of about a foot- 
of boggy soil, and in other neighbouring valleys in the re- 
. cesses of the Morne mountains in the county of Down. He 
vs describes the powder, when dry, to be of the whiteness of 
des chalk, but. becoming brownish when wet; as light as carbon- 
. mte guesia, which it much resembles, and without any 
ed S ogosion or enin ; 
