HISTORICAL SKETCH. KEK 
Henry Youle Hind. 
1859. Reports of progress: together with a preliminary and general report on the 
Assiniboine and Saskatchewan exploring expedition, made under instructions from the Pro- 
vincial Secretary, Canada. By HENRY YOULE Hinp, M. A., Professor of Chemistry and 
Geology in the University of Trinity College. Toronto, 4to, with maps and plates, pp. 
201, 1859. 
This valuable report, which is too often ignored by later travelers in making their 
reports on the region, gives definite information concerning the paleontology of the rocks 
on the western side of lake Winnipeg, accompanied by detailed sections of the strata. 
‘Nearly the whole length of the western coast of lake Winnipeg is composed of lime- 
stones, sandstones and shales of Silurian age.” These are assigned to the Chazy, Birds- 
eye, Trenton and Hudson River formations. The Chazy is a crumbling sandrock (the St. 
Peter sandstone of Owen). The Hudson River group is seen in cliffs 25 feet high at Stony 
Fort, on the Red river. He quotes the description of Owen who visited and reported on 
the Red River settlements in his final report on Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, (p 181) 
in 1852. The fossils reported by Owen, from Lower Fort Garry are: Favosites basaltica, 
Coscinipora sulcata, hemispherical masses of Syringopora, Chztetes lycoperdon, a 
Conularia, a small, beautiful undetermined species of Pleurorhynchus, Ormoceras bron- 
gniarti, Pleurotomaria lenticularis (?), Leptana alternata, Leptana plano-convexa (?), 
Calymene senaria, and several specimens of the shield of Illeenus crassicauda. 
‘Many of theseare identically the same fossils which occur in the lower part of Formation 3 in Wis. 
consin and Towa, in the Blue limestones of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, and also in the 
Lower Silurian of Europe.” 
In this report Mr. E. Billings, paleontologist of the Canadian survey, contributes a 
chapter on the paleozoic fossils, describing two new Silurian species, viz,, Modiolopsis 
parviuscula, and Orthoceras simpsoni. These and the other fossils named by him are 
considered sufficient to show that the beds containing them are probably about the age of 
the Chazy and Black River limestones. 
James Hail. 
1861. Report of the Superintendent of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, exhibiting 
the progress of the work, Jan. 1, 1861. By JAMES Hau; Madison, 1861. 
This report is devoted almost entirely to the description of fossils of which the follow- 
ing are from the Trenton, Galena and Hudson River:— 
Receptaculites oweni Hall. “In the Galena limestone of Wisconsin, northern Illinois and the eastern 
part of Iowa this fossil is everywhere present and is the most marked and characteristic form 
in the rock.” 
Receptaculites iowene Owen. Galena limestone. 
Receptaculites fungosum Hall, Galena limestone. 
Receptaculites globulare Hall. Galena limestone. 
Graptolithus (Diplograptus) peosta Hall. Hudson River shales. 
Dictyonema neenah Hall. Trenton limestone. 
Buthograptus laxus, n. sp. Trenton limestone. 
Tellinomya inflata, n. sp. Trenton limestone. 
Tellinomya aita, n. sp. Trenton limestone. 
