1S93J NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 79 



'* But when I made my last find of Tampa fossil diatomaceous 

 clay, I communicated with Mr. Woolman, and told him that an 

 illustrated article in the Engineering Magazine noted that geolo- 

 gists had stated that the productive phosphate area had been 'laid 

 down upon eocene limestone strata, which had not been sub- 

 merged after the upheaval.' I do not know what construc- 

 tion Mr. Woolman put upon this, but he replied that, if the peb- 

 ble phosphate was dredged from the Manatee River, Dr. Dall had 

 found distinct miocene fossil shells at Manatee. After he had an 

 actual inspection of the clay, he replied that it struck him as 

 equivalent in age to the Virginia outcrop of miocene clay strata, 

 the same as that which he had studied at Atlantic City and else- 

 where, and that he had also consulted Dr. W. H. Dall's latest 

 map of the geology of the Florida peninsula, in which the Fer- 

 nandina and St. Augustine coast was designated as 'newer mio- 

 cene,' and the Tampa coast as 'older miocene,' and he proposed 

 making a communication touching the new clay, based on these 

 recently collected data, to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences 

 as promptly as possible. 



''Mr. Woolman had in preparation a paper on a diatom de- 

 posit encountered at depths between 90 and 150 feet, in artesian 

 borings at Ponce de Leon Hotel, St. Augustine, Florida, but 

 said that he had not fully settled upon the age of the foramin- 

 iferal forms found in his boring samples, and this is why his work 

 has not been put upon record. 



" Mr. Woolman was highly gratified at my discovery, as he said 

 that geologists, for two years past, had tried to trace the diato- 

 maceous clay or rock near Tampa on Hillsboro Bay, mentioned 

 by Prof. J. W. Bailey in his microscopical researches about 1852, 

 but without success. He said that he would defer to me, and if I 

 would inform him when my find was put upon record with the 

 New- York Microscopical Society, he would then make his com- 

 munication to the Philadelphia Academy, giving me full credit 

 for the discovery. So far as he could ascertain, this fossil marine 

 deposit had not been announced by any one previous to myself, 

 although he had been studying diatomaceous and foraminiferal 

 forms from St. Augustine, secured more than a year ago. 



" Dr. Edwards wrote me that he thought the clay of eocene 

 tertiary age, and I wrote in reply the material points contained 



