TENTH MEETING 



ROYAL INSTITUTION, March \Oth, 1845. 



JOS. B, YATES, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. T. E. Hardy was admitted a Member of the 

 Society. 



A communication was read from Mr. Hale, of Mobile, 

 accompanying a box of Fossils, from Claiborne and Prairie 

 Bluffs, in the state of Alabama, forwarded by the ship 

 Pactolus, Capt. Harding. The Fossils, which were exhi- 

 bited, were presented by Mr. Hale, to the Natural History 

 Society ; thanks were ordered to be returned for them. 



The following are extracts from Mr. Hale's letter, which 

 was read : — 



" Claiborne is one hundred miles in a direct course 

 from the Gulf of Mexico. It is probably the highest 

 elevation upon the Alabama river, short of the great bend, 

 at the commencement of the primary region. 



" This escarpement seems to have been the termination 

 of an elevated ridge, which once extended much farther 

 to the west, but has, in the lapse of ages, been worn away 

 by the force of the river at its base, till reduced to its pre- 

 sent limits. In their mineral properties, the beds here 

 exhibited, present no very marked characteristics. 



" The first, which occurs at the base, consists of argil- 

 laceous marl, intermixed with finely comminuted particles 

 of mica and green sand. Its height is about twenty feet 

 above the water's edge, and it contains only a few fossils, 

 principally of the genera Turritella, Area, Cardita, Pecten, 

 and Ostrea. 



" On this lies a thin, but dense bed of Ostreae, of the 

 species divaricata, pincerna, lingua-canis and a fewPectens. 



" Then succeed several strata of white and grey lime- 

 stone, more or less indurated, containing but few fossils, 

 principally casts of indeterminate species, and interspersed 

 are several beds of dirt and gravel. 



" The upper of these strata are mixed with green sand, 

 the height of the whole varies from fifty to sixty feet. 



