36 FOURTH REPORT — 1834. 



calate several subordinate new periods between the principal 

 ones already recognised, fulfilling the plan and the predictions 

 of Mr. Lyell. 



The proportion of species in the tables which are to follow 

 will show how far these suggestions are pertinent. In the 

 mean while I sliall content myself with establishing, from proper 

 evidence, the existence of both the older pleiocene and meiocene 

 in their broader limitations, being assisted by the tables and 

 notes of Mr. Conrad, whose researches in this field, in Maryland 

 and Virginia, constitute the chief of what we at present know 

 touching these formations, and whose expression of concur- 

 rence in some of my present general views gives me much 

 satisfaction. 



Geographical Range of the older Pleiocene and Meiocene For- 

 mations. — Commencing most probably, as I have already stated, 

 in the southern extremity of New Jersey, these tertiary beds 

 show themselves in a wide and, at present, imdefined belt con- 

 tinuously through Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North 

 Carolina, in the south of which State, and in part of the adjoin- 

 ing State of South Carolina, they only occur in interrupted 

 patches, thinning out and disappearing altogether after reaching 

 the Santee river in South Carolina. 



New Jersey . — Hardly anything is known of these formations 

 in this State, beyond what may be inferred from a small collec- 

 tion of shells procured by Mr. Conrad, near Stone Creek, Cum- 

 berland county, and by a few specimens of similar fossils received 

 from Cape May and other places along the same shore of the 

 Delawai'e Bay. In mineral character the middle tertiary beds of 

 New Jersey appear, from the slight examination which they have 

 had, to consist of yellowish siliceous sands, resting upon a lead- 

 coloured clay, the chief receptacle of the fossil shells above enu- 

 merated. There is reason to believe that tertiary beds are nearly 

 continuous from Salem to Cape May and Great Egg Harbour, a 

 tract of at least forty miles long by ten or fifteen broad. How 

 much more of the peninsula of New Jersey may consist of ter- 

 tiary beds, we cannot say, as the surface is deeply covered by 

 diluvium and sea sand. 



Delaware. — In this State tertiary formations of the same 

 period certainly exist, though it is a district which has received 

 no attention. At Cantwell's Bridge, fossils have been procured, 

 which Mr. Coni-ad is inclined to refer to the middle tertiary, 

 though we consider the locality to require further investigation 

 before we can pronounce even thus far. 



Maryland. — Formations, the major part at least of which 

 are fairly of the middle tertiary age, occupy nearly the whole 



