THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



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The Fossil Diatomace^: Older than those of Virginia and 

 California, which are Older Miocene. 



By Prof. Arthur M. Edwards, M.D., Newark, N.J., U.S. 



{Read December 21st, 1894.) 



I have found Diatomaceaa older than the Lower Miocene, and 

 I desire to place this on record, more especially as they are not 

 developing forms, but identical with those growing at the 

 preset time. 



As some geologists have expressed a doubt of my finding 

 Diatomaceae in the Newark-period sandstone of Arlington 

 N.J., I will state how and when I did so, and trust that others 

 will collect the clay in which they were found, and repeat the 

 discovery. I should say that the Newark-period sandstone is 

 so called by Prof. T. C. Russell, and includes the red sandstones 

 that crop out in New Brunswick, at New Haven, Connecticut, 

 and in which the celebrated tracks were found by the late 

 Prof. Hitchcock, at Newark, N. J., and south into Virginia. It 

 has also been called the Jura-Triassic sandstone, and is supposed 

 to represent the upper part of the Keuper-Sandstein of 

 Germany. 



It is now nearly twenty years since I came to reside at 

 Newark. I saw the sandstone and came to the conclusion it must 

 have been formed in shallow pools of fresh water, because 

 the plants found in it were those of the shores of fresh and 

 not salt water ; the Mollusca, scarce, of course, were fresh-water 

 forms also. I expected to find the remains of Diatomaceas if 

 they existed; they had been found in the coal of England, in 

 the Carboniferous coal by Castracane, and in the Tertiary by 

 Ehrenberg and Bailey, but I sought in vain. The fact was I 

 searched only in New r ark itself, in the sandstone alone, and not 



Journ. Q. M. C, Series II., No. 36. 1 



