v7 
which may be a fish, but is so fragmentary as to be practi- 
cably undeterminable.* 
Pror. D. 8S. Marvin exhibited specimens of Paleotrochis 
minor, Emmons, from Troy, North Carolina, and also of the 
rock which they form when aggregated. The interest which 
attaches to these much-disputed and oft-ridiculed fossils (?) 
from the Taconic, is certainly very considerable, and no pre- 
judice or authority should be suffered to warp the judgment 
of geologists regarding them. When seen in a mass, aggrega- 
ted and partially crushed, they have a strongly concretionary 
aspect, it is true; but when good specimens are examined 
singly, their regularity of form and of apparent structure 
becomes very striking. They are evidently worthy of most 
careful study. 
THE PRESIDENT said that in Oregon, 150 miles south of the 
Dalles, there occurs a tufaceous rock filled ‘with peculiar 
small concretions, the product of hot waters charged with 
silica, which strongly resemble the Paleotrochis; he had been 
wont to suspect that such was the real nature of the latter. 
Pror. MarrTIN also showed large specimens of Ostrea bore- 
alis, from the great shell-heaps on the Damariscotta River, 
Maine, procured by Miss Helen C. Kingsley of this city. The 
largest of these kjokken-moeddings are described as extend- 
ing along the river-bank for a full half-mile, with a height of 
some thirty feet, and bearing a growth of large and ancient 
trees. So immense is the deposit of shells, that it is now 
extensively worked for the purpose of procuring lime as a 
fertilizer. Many of the oyster-shells are a foot and a half 
long, and with them have been found many stone imple- 
ments, and some human skulls. The oyster is now scarcely 
found on that portion of our coast, and when it is, the in- 
dividuals are few and small. 
THE PRESIDENT exhibited a set of skulls of the large post- 
tertiary peccary, Ducotyles compressus, Leconte, lately dis- 
* Cf. Note on the genus Oonchiopsis, Cope. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 
Phil., 1873, part 2, page 425. 
