1896.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 237 



water and be crushed to a powder by the pressure of 

 the hand and when further reduced by the trituration 

 process yiekls millions of beautiful foraminifera of many 

 species, all of microscopic size. 



On a former occasion I had the pleasure of communi- 

 cating to this Journal the results of some micro-studies 

 of the marl beds of this same vicinity in which I called 

 attention to the occurrence of minute ornate calcareous 

 glassy plates, anchors and wheels, such as are now de- 

 rived from the cuticle or epidermis of the holothurians 

 of existing seas, but I have found it practically a hope- 

 less task to find in such calcareous marls any traces of 

 silicious fossil remains. 



What has already preceded would cover all of inter- 

 est to the microscopist as noted in this area; traversed 

 by the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. On my return from 

 this trip I next visited the territory northwards of Mobile 

 on the line of the Mobile and Birmingham Railroad for 

 a further collecting of mineral specimens. This oppor- 

 tunity enabled me to study a somewhat similar series of 

 deposits as were found in Mississippi. In the vicinity of 

 Jackson, Clarke Co., Alabama, outcrops of the white 

 chalky limestone, locally known as "Chimney Rock" and 

 the marl deposits were duly studied. I secured samples 

 of an indurated clay from the lowest stratum of the out- 

 crops in a deep ravine; as the descent from the adjacent 

 hills led down for about a hundred or more feet. After- 

 wards in submitting the material found here to the 

 trituration process, I determined that here was a horizon 

 where silicious and calcareous micro-organisms had 

 simultaneously flourished and had left their so-far 

 indestructible remains in evidence of their former 

 life. 



In this silicious marl stratum, I found associated fora- 

 minifera of many species, diatoms of the discoidal and tri- 

 angular forms, radiolaria and microscopic echinus spines 



