214 Miscellanies. 



characteristic of the chalk, comprising among others, the genera Cris- 

 tellaria, Rotallina, and Nodosaria. 



Mr. Owen has recognized in the fossil reptiles from New Jersey the 

 vertebrae of Mosasaurus and Pliosaurus, and a large crocodile of the Pro- 

 cselian division. There are also many fish of the shark family, analo- 

 gous to those of the English chalk, and the Galeus pristodontus of Eu- 

 rope is represented by a species very closely allied, if not identical. 



At South Washington, in North Carolina, three hundred and fifty 

 miles southwest of New Jersey, Mr. Lyell found cretaceous marls, con- 

 taining Belemnites mucronacus, Exogyra costata, and other character- 

 istic chalk fossils, some of them common to the lower, others to the 

 upper fossiliferous group of New Jersey, besides several new species. 



The author ascertained that the pebbly limestone of Wilmington, N. 

 C, and the white limestone of the Santee river, S. C, and that of Shell 

 Bluff, in Georgia, which had all been usually regarded as upper creta- 

 ceous, are in fact eocene tertiary rocks, containing no admixture of 



* 



secondary fossils. 



2. On the probable age and origin of a bed of plumbago and antlira- 



Worcester. Mass. ; by C. Lyell 



F. G. S., &c— A bed of plumbago and impure anthracite, described 

 by Professor Hitchcock, in his Geology of Massachusetts, is found m- 

 terstratified with mica schist, near Worcester, forty five miles due wes 

 of Boston. It is about two feet in thickness, and has been worked for 

 coal and lead pencils. It is occasionally iridescent, like coal, and con- 

 tains pyrites, which is also found in the associated clay slate and gar- 

 netiferous mica schist, both of which are impregnated with carbonaceou 

 matter. These schists, including plumbago, are separated from the a - 



thracite occurring on the borders of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, y 



• • 'A The 



a district of gneiss and hornblende slate about thirty miles wide. 



anthracite of those states is impure and earthy, but has been worke 

 coal at Wrentham, Cumberlend, Mansfield, and other places, where, in 

 the accompanying carbonaceous and pyritiferous shales, are seen 

 merous impressions of the most common coal plants, such as * ec0 P 

 ris plumosa, Neuropteris Jlexuosa, Sphenophyllum, Calamites, fyc 

 shales and grits of these coal measures are very quartziferous, 

 formerly called greywacke, and have been shown by Prof. Hitcnc 

 and Dr. Jackson to pass into mica schist and other metamorphic roc * 

 and to be invaded by syenite and trap. Mr. Lyell is of opinion tha ^ 

 stratified rocks containing the plumbago of Worcester, consisted or D 

 nally of a similar carboniferous formation, but have since been so 

 tered by heat and other causes, as to assume a crystalline and ni 

 morphic texture, by which the grits and shales of the coal have ^ 

 turned into quartzite, clay slate and mica schist, and the anthracite 



