302 Notice of Ehrenberg’s Memoir on Microscopic Life. 
at any other locality. Of the species, ten, or almost one fifth, are 
new and peculiar. : 7 
‘‘ Many of the forms occurring in the deposit are, as Prof. Bailey 
quite correctly concluded from. his smaller number of observations, 
similar to those of Oran, but many of these forms also do not occur at 
Oran. According to the materials now furnished for comparison, the 
true relations are such, that of the eleven species of the genus Cosci- 
- nodiseus, five occur at Oran which are also found at Richmond, five 
are found at Richmond alone, and one at Oran alone. Of thirteen 
“ As a considerable number of the species of animals belonging to 
the chalk formation of Sicily still exist, and consequently cannot be 
wanting in the tertiary formations, it is evident that no conclusion as t0 
the geological age of these formations can be drawn from the similar 
ity or dissimilarity of these forms. 
“This group of American forms is of peculiar interest and scientific 
importance, because the strata at Richmond are decidedly of marine 
origin, and consequently give at once a general view of the marine 
microscopic animalg of the North American ocean ; for probably the 
greater number of species are still living there, as they have already 
been found abundantly on the German coast of the North Sea.* The | 
geological position of the strata must be determined by the order of 
superposition, the larger included organic remains, Wc. as it cannot be 
decided by means of the infusoria. 
“ West Point, N. Y.—The discovery of a bed of fossil infusoria at 
West Point, N. Y. was announced by Prof. Bailey in the Americal 
Journal of Science, Vol. xxxiv, July, 1838; in the year 1839 I te 
ceived through Humboldt a specimen of this deposit from Dr. Tor 
rey, and in February of the same year I made a report concerning it 
to the Academy at Berlin. ‘To the fifteen organic forms then mention 
ed many others have been added by further examination.” ‘ 
Ehrenberg then gives a list of sixty two organic forms detect- 
ed by him in the fossil specimens from West Point, among which 
are forty seven independent organisms, (animalcules,) of which 
only one, Amphiprora, belongs to a new genus; all the rest be 
long to twelve European genera. Only seven species, or about 
one seventh of the whole, can be considered as peculiar. BY fat 
in, 
* Many of these species have been known for some time to exist in a living 
state, not only upon our sea-coast, but up to the limits of brackish water in ma™Y ‘ 
of our rivers, 
ae 
