32 PROCEEDINGS OF WASHINGTON MEETING. 



The next paper was entitled : 



STUDIES IN PROBLEMATIC ORGANISMS — THE GENUS SCOLITHVS. 



BY JOSEPH F. JAMES, M. S., F. G. S. A., ETC. 



In 1840 Professor S. S. Haldemann described a fossil occurring in a sandstone of 

 southeastern Pennsylvania as follows:* 



" Fucoides (?) linearis : Stem simple (never branched), rectilinear, surface nearly even; diameter 

 % to % inch, length several feet, cylindrical or compressed. Locality, south of Reading and north 

 of Columbia, Pennsylvania, being the oldest fossil in the state, occurring in the tirst stratified rock 

 above the gneiss. 06s.: I discovered this fossil in 1835, and described it about three years ago as 

 Skoliihos linearis, and because the genus Fucoides is composed of heterogeneous materials. The 

 characters of t\te sub-genus Skolithos are: Stem free, cylindric or sub-cylindric, vermiform or 

 linear, never branched; structure unknown." 



This is the first introduction of the name Scolithus into geological literature, 

 although forms now recognized as belonging to the genus had been previously 

 mentioned. In 1833 Professor Edward Hitchcock noticed a fossil supposed by him 

 to be a fucoid occurring in the New Red sandstone (Triassic) of Deerfield and Green- 

 field, Massachusetts. He described it f as varying from j'^ to 1 inch in diameter, 

 running through the rock either in the direction of the lamina?, when it is more or 

 less compressed ; or at right angles or obliquely to the laminae, when it is cylindri- 

 cal. It is frequently curved but never branched. A specimen broken transversely 



showed the cylinder to be made up 

 of convex layers of sandstone, piled 

 one upon the other (figure 1). On 

 one side of the rock were button- 

 like protuberances and on the other 

 side corresponding cavities. It was 

 supposed to resemble Fucoides brong- 

 niarti, Harlan, but no name was 

 applied to it. In the second edition 

 of the Geology, however, published 

 in 1835, the same fossil is described 

 (pp. 235, 23(3) ; and, after stating the 

 conclusion that it differed from Fu- 



Figube 1 — Scolithus shepardi, Hitchcock (sp.) 

 Hitchcock.) 



(After 



coides bronguiurti, Hitchcock proposed to call it F. shepardi. The cylindrical form 

 passing through the laminae of the rock seems to be congeneric with Scolithus, 

 although the compressed form, parallel with the lamina?, may not be the same. 

 The genus Fucoides having been broken up and abandoned, I propose that this form 

 be called Scolithus shepardi. In the final report on the geology of Massachusetts, 

 published in 1841, the fossil is again described in the same language as that pre- 

 viously used.J Two figures are also given, one of which is reproduced in figure 1 

 of this paper. 



In 1838 Professor W. B. Rogers in describing the rocks of Formation I, as it 

 occurred in Virginia, referred to markings at right angles to the stratification which 



♦Supplement to No. 1 of "A Monograph of the Limnaides or Fresh-water shells of North America." 

 October, 1840, p. 3. 

 f Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, etc, of Massachusetts : Amherst, 1833, p. 233. 

 X Volume ii, pp. 4">.">. 456; fig. 95. 



