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had met his eye, from time to time, that the loess, so to call it, 

 is an extensive formation in the region borderincj on the Missis- 

 sippi, and that it will be found largely developed there and in the 

 valleys of its tributary rivers. He had, in several instances, had 

 brought to him fossil land-shells, in the same condition as those 

 found in the Natchez bluff, with no other indication of their 

 origin than that they were obtained in Mississippi. This fact 

 seemed to him to indicate the existence of other localities in that 

 vicinity. Prof David D. Owen, of New Harmony, Indiana, has 

 discovered an extensive deposit of this kind in Pusey County, on 

 the Wabash River, in that State. It is a fine sandy loam, of a 

 yellowish-white color. It occurs on the upland, from twenty-five 

 to fifty feet above the bottom land, and is generally reached in 

 digging wells at the distance of from six to ten feet from the sur- 

 face, and has been penetrated to the depth of twenty-five feet, 

 without passing through it. It appears also on the opposite side 

 of the Wabash, in Illinois, at about the same level, and near 

 Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, forty miles distant. Prof. 

 Owen, from whom this information was obtained, had heard that 

 a similar deposit had been noticed in an analogous situation on 

 the Mississippi River, above the American bottom, opposite St. 

 Louis. The Wabash deposit contains great numbers of ter- 

 restrial, and some fluvialile, shells, in a condition similar to those 

 of the Natchez bluffs. ' 



On the whole, Dr. Binney had adopted the conclusion that the 

 upper beds of the Natchez bluffs are analogous to the loess of the 

 Rhine, and that the strata are the result of flaviatile action, and 

 not attributable to the drift. A long period of gradual sinking 

 of the land, producing stratum upon stratum of sands, clays, 

 gravel, marl and loam, brought down by the waters, succeeded 

 by another lengthened period of gradual rising, during which the 

 river cut its way through the strata it had before deposited, would 

 account for all the existing appearances. In this view, the con- 

 cretionary minerals, contained in the beds, must be held to be 

 the result of chemical action among their materials, after they 

 were deposited. 



* Hon. B. Tappan stated to Dr. B., verbally, that a similar deposit, with land- 

 shells, occurs in the valley of the Scioto, near Columbus, Ohio. 



