26 Section on Yellow Creek. 
four inches in length, and from half an inch to one inch in diameter 
at the base. I can describe the form and structure no better than 
by saying they resemble a mass of conical ‘ candle extinguishers,” 
one placed within the other, and so arranged as to make a compact 
bed, four inches thick, and extending over an indefinite space. The 
thickness of the sides of the cones, varies according to size, from an 
eighth to a twelfth of an inch. The form resembles some of the 
species of Belemnites, more than any other fossil. Its geological 
position, according to Blainville, is favorable to this supposition, be- 
ing near the tertiary or recent secondary deposits. Its composition 
is calcareous, effervescing strongly with dilute sulphuric acid, when 
pulverized and mixed with it. It is not a deposit, but a regularly 
organized substance, like coral or madrepore, and I have no doubt 
formed through animal agency. It is also peculiar to the calcareous 
deposits of the coal series, and 1 believe found only on the outer 
margins of the great coal basins, in the valley of the Mississippi, 
where they approach the tertiary deposits. I have in my cabinet 
specimens of the same fossil, from the coal region on the Osage 
River, in the vicinity of Harmony, the missionary station, presented 
to me by the Rev. Mr. Boynton, who collected them with his own 
hands from the bed of the river, in place. It is there from four to 
eight inches in thickness, and is named by the kunters “coal blos- 
som,” as where that is seen coal is usually found in the vicinity. 
When exposed to the air, the fossil separates easily, and can be 
taken out whole, in the same way that a package of thimbles, or a 
pile of tin cones, placed one within the other, may be separated. I 
have the same fossil, but much larger and thicker, from the Gauly 
River, in western Virginia, found imbedded in bituminous shale, in 
rolled masses; also, from near Chilicothe, found in excavating the 
Ohio Canal, resting on gravel, at the depth of eight or ten feet. 
These last specimens are siliceous, about four inches thick, and were 
broken from a water-worn mass, a foot across the face, much resem- 
bling the transverse section of a log of wood. ‘They were probably 
brought from'the northern borders of the coal deposits, at the same 
time that the granite bowlders were scattered over the tertiary re- 
gion of the great valley, and by the same catastrophe. An appro- 
priate name for this organized stratum, might be Belemnita-Madre- 
pora, provided it should, on further examination, be proved to be 
of the family of Belemnites. Additional aid to this conjecture is 
found in the fact, that the deposit on which this stratum “pags is 
