GEOLOGY. 273 



buried in the sand, with the bones partially exposed to view. 

 Captain Boutelle at once communicated the discovery to Professor 

 C. U. Shephard, Sr., of the South Carolina Medical College, and 

 that gentleman, with the assistance of Captain Boutelle, recovered 

 the greater portion of the skeleton. 



Reptilian Remains in the Coal-Measures. — Mr. J. Thomson has 

 discovered batrachian remains at Hamilton, in Lanarkshire, in the 

 stratum between ironstone and coal, well overlaid by the lat- 

 ter ; associated with them were remains of reptilian fishes, pecu- 

 liar to the coal-measures. A few years ago, geologists would not 

 have expected to find batrachian reptiles in rocks of this age. 



Cambrian Fossils. — Mr. H. Hicks has recently discovered, in the 

 strata of the lower Cambrian, a faaha representing species belong- 

 ing to at least 10 genera, consisting of brachiopods, pteropods, 

 phyllopods, etc. 



Vast Numbers of Fossil Fishes. — Dr. A. L. Adams states that, 

 on September 24th, 1867, during a heavy gale from the west, im- 

 pinging almost straight on to the entrance of Anderson's Cove, on 

 the coast of the Bay of Fund}', enormous numbers of fish were ob- 

 served fioating dead upon the surface of the water, and thrown 

 up in great quantities by the waves. When the gale subsided, 

 the whole surface of the lagoon and its banks was covered with 

 dead fish, to the depth of a foot in some places. It was evident 

 that the shoal had been literally ground to pieces against the 

 rocks by the force of the waves. He refers to the vast quantities 

 of fossil fish found in the Devonian and other strata, which sug- 

 gested catastrophes allied to the above incident. — Proc. Oeol. Soc. 



Catamites. — According to the recently published researches of 

 Messrs. Binney and Carruthers, the fossil calamites is an actual 

 member of the existing family of Fquisetacece, which contained 

 previously but one genus, that of the common mare's tails of 

 river banks and woods ; and nearly a dozen other genera of the 

 plants of the coal-measures may be referred to it. It may prove 

 of some siofnificance that these calamites which, in the coal 

 j3eriod, assumed gigantic proportions, and presented many forms 

 and very varied organs of growth, are now represented by only 

 one genus, differing most remarkably from its prototype in size, 

 and the simplicity and uniformity of its organs. 



Arctic Miocene Flora. — According to Prof. Heer, forests of 

 Austrian, American, and Asiatic trees flourished during miocene 

 times in Iceland, Greenland, Spitzbergen, and the polar Amer- 

 ican islands, in latitudes where such trees could not now exist 

 under any conceivable conditions or positions of land, or sea, or 

 ice, leaving but little doubt that an arboreal vegetation once ex- 

 tended to the pole itself. This at present seems to contradict all 

 previous geological reasonings as to the climate and condition of 

 the globe during the tertiary epoc^. 



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