124 _ Scientific Intelligence. 
The cinders which have been ejected by Pompeii, are of fresh-water 
formation ; and they are similar to those constituting the tufa of Hoch- 
simmer, on the Rhine. 
The bed containing the fossil Mastodon, on the La Plata, and that of 
the fossil bones at Monte Hermosa, and the hills in the plains of Bahia 
Blanca, are formations of fresh-water origin, mixed with some marine. 
52, Abundant occurrence of rare Infusoria in the Scallop.—(To the 
Editors of the Annals of Natural History.) —GznTLEMEN: The discovery 
some time since of the siliceous shells and cases of animalcules in the 
stomach of recent Lepades, belonging to many of the genera and some 
of the species which constitute a large proportion of the miocene ter- 
tiary strata of Virginia, was announced in Dr. ManrEtu’s recent work, 
the ‘ Medals of Creation.’ (See vol. i, p. 586.) This fact, so highly 
interesting in a geological point of view, has been fully established by 
many ; and among others by the Rev. J. B. Reape, who has communi- 
cated the result of his examination of the oyster to the Microscopic So- 
ciety. Having subsequently extended my investigations to the contents 
of the digestive sac of other mollusks, it may interest your readers to 
be informed that the common scallop (Pecten maximus) now in season, 
and therefore easily obtained, contains a richer assemblage of the most 
beautiful siliceous carapaces of animalcules than any other of the mol- 
lusea hitherto noticed. 
So abundant and diversified are these forms in the scallop, that a few 
grains of the undigested contents of the stomach, properly prepared and 
mounted on a glass slide, exhibits many of the species usually found in 
the Richmond earth, and indeed could not be readily distinguished from 
a similar preparation of the fossil forms. 
Another remarkable fact, also noticed in the * Medals,’ (see p. 233,) 
that of the occurrence of the mineralized bodies of Polythalamia, is fully 
confirmed; and when the eye of the observer becomes accustomed to the 
appearances presented by remains of this kind, they will be found abun- 
dantly in most chalk flints. I discovered one species in an atom of flint, 
in which the entire body of a Rotalia, except that part of it which occupied 
the outer cell, is as beautifully preserved as that of an insect in amber. 
Iam, gentlemen, yours obediently, Hamutn Les. 
Chester Square, Pimlico, April 21, 1845. 
53. On the Microscopic Constituents of the Ashof Fossil Coal; by 
Professor Enrenzere, (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., xvi, 1845, pp. 69, 70.) 
ee At the meeting of the Berlin Academy of the 25th of October, Prof: 
| Enrensere communicated an observation of Dr. Franz Suuuz of El- 
4 
ia, \ hich the latter had: addressed to M. vy. Humsoxor in a letter, in 
which he describes his method of separating the silica contained in 
coal so chemically pure as to enable us to recognize the microscopical 
* 
