258 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



the great valle3'S. In the Champlain vallej', it is nearl}- north and 

 south; and in the St. Lawrence vallej^, northeast and southwest. The 

 marine Tertiarj^ of Champlain, though deposited in quiet waters, al- 

 waj'S overlies the scored and grooved surfaces. The bowlders succeed 

 this Tertiary or are mixed with it. It is mineralogically composed in as- 

 cending order, of first, a stiff blue clay; second, a yellowish brown 

 clay; and third, a 3'ellowish brown sand. The second owes its color 

 to weathering rather than to any important difference in its composi- 

 tion from the lower cla}'. Sand begins to appear in the yellowish cla}', 

 and increases graduall}- until it predominates, and finallj' becomes a 

 pure siliceous sand. No fossils had then been discovered in the cla}^, 

 but in the cla}' and sand and upper part of the group fossils are found 

 as if in their native habitat, exceedingly frail, preserving their mark- 

 ings and edges entire, forbidding the idea that they could have been 

 drifted into their present position. In protected places, as at Port 

 Kent and Beauport, the thickness of the group is about 100 feet. In 

 unprotected places, the larger part of the group has been swept away. 



Commencing at Whitehall, at the head of Lake Champlain, it may 

 be traced continuously not only the entire length of the lake, but also 

 to Quebec and far toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It lines the St. 

 Lawrence river as far as Ogdensburg. And from Whitehall south it 

 lines the Hudson river for a long distance. The Albany cla}' belongs 

 to this group, and is therefore one of the most recent of our marine 

 formations. 



Mr. Conrad* described, from the Miocene at Calvert Cliffs, Mary- 

 land, Venus latilirata, Cytherea suhnasuta, Lucina foremani^ L. suh- 

 planata, Cardium leptopleura, Astarte varians^ A. exaltata, Lima 

 papyria, Area subrostrata, Pleurotoma marylandicum ^ P. hellicreaa- 

 tum, Trochus peralveatus, Scalaria pachypleura. Solarium trilineatum, 

 now Architectonica trilinejxta^ Infundihulam perarmatum, Fissurella 

 marylandica, Dispotoia ramosa, Cancellaria hiplicifera, C. engonata, 

 Bonellia lineata, Turritella indenta, T, exaltata, T. perlaqueata, Mar- 

 ginella perexigua. And also Astrea marylandica, incrusting Pecten 

 madisonius on James river, Virginia; A. bella, from Newbern, North 

 Carolina; Cardium nicolletti, now Protocardia nicolletti, from the 

 Lower Tertiary or Jackson Group, on the Washita river, Monroe 

 count3\ Louisiana; and Fusus p>'^<'Ohyleurus, from the Lower Tertiarj^ of 

 Alabama. 



Edmund Ravenelf described, from a Pliocene calcareous deposit on 



Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci., vol. viii., pt 2. t ^t>i<l . 



