30 Phosphate Rocks of South Carolina, 
and the elevation of the coast above the level of the 
Ocean. When the sand hills and the submarine 
lagoons were raised, the basins contained sea or 
salt water, and must have been so many small salt 
lakes along the sea-coast, having their bottoms cov- 
ered or paved with a thin layer of the nodular frag- 
ments of Marl rock. As the evaporation of the salt 
water progressed, what was left became day after day 
a stronger brine, until at last a deposit of salt ulti- 
mately formed as a crust upon the pavement of Marl 
rocks. And here we must remind the reader, that 
these nodular fragments of Eocene rocks are composed 
(like the mother rock from which they had been 
broken off) entirely of the dead shells of marine ani- 
mals, which age after age were deposited at the bottom 
of the Ocean or Eocene sea, and finally became an im- 
mense bed or formation of Marl, enclosing through- 
out its great depth not only the Polythalamous shells, 
corals and corallines, but the teeth and bones of 
sharks, and other fish, and of whale-like and alliga- 
tor-like animals ; such alone as live in the sea; but no 
remains of any land animal have ever yet been found in 
zt. We say it without any fear of contradiction, and 
challenge proof of a single specimen being obtained 
from, or wzbedded in the nodules, (Phosphate-rocks,) 
or from the Marl bed itself the mother rock. All the 
remains of land animals obtained in such vast num- 
bers are mngled with, and not znbedded in, the nodules 
found in the Phosphate basins; and this mingling of 
bones and teeth occurred in the Post-PLEIOCENE AGE 
after the elevation of the basins above the ocean level. 
