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way. He could see no evidence, except in the ancient estuaries 

 of the eastern part of the country, of an extensive sea four or 

 five hundred feet deep, across which icebergs might have 

 floated. 



Dr. Pickering stated that Mr. Nuttall had obtained a large 

 number of bones from the vicinity of the Neuss. Mr. N. had never 

 attributed to them an age equal to the Tertiary. In the neighbor- 

 hood of Big Bone Lick and the whole valley of the Ohio, there are 

 no marine shells later than the Secondary. The same was true, 

 he said, of the deposites in which mastodons had been found in 

 New Jersey and New York. 



Prof. Rogers remarked that he thought we should not assume 

 the age of a formation without organic remains to prove it. He 

 was glad he had it on Dr. Pickering's authority, that there are no 

 marine fossils in the interior, associated with the remains in ques- 

 tion. It was a point on which he had himself insisted for years. 

 It was certainly very strange, if such an extensive submergence 

 had existed, that no trace of animal life could be detected, even 

 by the microscope. In the absence of such evidence he thought 

 we must resort to the theory of inundation to explain the marks 

 of aqueous action over so large a district, so near its present 

 level. 



Dr. Pickering said that he had asked Mr. Nuttall, if among the 

 bones which he had collected from various localities, he had dis- 

 covered any fossil shells ; and it was his impression that he replied, 

 he had not. Dr. Pickering also stated that the region from which 

 Dr. Gibbes obtained his specimens, is strictly an alluvial district, 

 made up of mixed materials ; and that no dependence should be 

 placed on the shells there discovered as indications of the age 

 of the bones buried in it. He himself had seen a specimen of 

 a Helix now living, found in this deposit. 



The President remarked that Mr. Conrad held the opinion that 

 the formation on the Neuss containing the fossils in question, 

 belonged to the Medial Tertiary or Older Pleiocene deposit. 



Mr. Foster stated that several years since, when engaged on 

 the geological survey of Ohio, in the eastern part of the State, a 

 number of mastodon and other bones were discovered, projecting 

 from a bank of clay forty feet in thickness, over which was a 



