^34 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[Mo. 6 



larity in the time of their arrival, at either end of 

 the road, that the complaints of disappointed pas- 

 sengers, were loud and li-equent. This state of 

 things contmued with some exceptions, until Ja- 

 nuary, when a more efficient system for the im- 

 provement, repair and management of the road 

 ■was adopted. 



Your committee made a second tour of exa- 

 mination on the road on the24lh and 25th of last 

 month, April, and found the aspect of things en- 

 tirely changed. The repairs of the road since 

 their first visit, had been prosecuted wiJh energy, 

 and to the extent necessary to the security and 

 success of the line. The road is now in good or- 

 der. Measures have been adopted to secure, at 

 all times, a plentiful supply of wood and water, 

 by the improvement of old water stations and the 

 establishment of new ones. The motive power 

 of the road, though not equal to all the purposes 

 of transportation, is more efficiently applied, and 

 the passenger trains travel with speed and cer- 

 tainty, and arrive with punctuality. 



Your committee have made a thorough investi- 

 gation of the books of the treasurer. They have 

 been kept with an accuracy which does credit to 

 that officer. Every item of expenditure is sus- 

 tained by the proper vouchers, and the arrange- 

 ment of his books and accounts is such as to pre- 

 sent, at a glance, a liiithful exhibit of the fiscal af- 

 fairs of the company. The books exhibit the re- 

 ceipts and disbursements as follows: 

 Receipts fi^om railroad for transpor- 

 tation, $50,336 64 



All other sources, - . - 80,075 35 



Eocpended. 



The payment of debts, $36,669 35 



The excavation, em- 

 bankment and other 

 purposes of road, 93,098 98 



Balance in hand of 

 treasurer, 643 66 



$130,411 99 



8130,411 99 

 Respectfully submitted, 



Samuel Watts, Chairman. 



From tlie Mining Journal. 



ASTONISHING FACTS RELATIVE TO A FORMER 

 ORGANIC WORLD. 



" Dr. Buckland now proceeds to the most im- 

 portant and popular branch of his subject — to give 

 a description of the most interesting ibssil organic 

 remains, and to show that the extinct species of 

 plants and animals which formerly occupied our 

 planet, display, even in their fragments and relics, 

 the same marks of wisdom and design which 

 have been universally recognized in the existing 

 species of organized beings. 



" After giving some account of the supposed 

 cases of fossil human bones, and establishing the 

 remarkable fact of the ' total absence of any ves- 

 tiges of the human species throughout the entire 

 series of geological formations,' our author passes 

 to the general history of Ibssil organic remains: — 



"'It is marvellous that mankind should have 

 gone on lor so many centuries in ignorance of the 

 fact, whieh is now bo fully demonstrated, that no 



small part of the present surface of the earth is 

 derived from the remains of animals that consti- 

 tuted the population of ancient seas. Many ex- 

 tensive plams and massive mountains, form, as it 

 were, the great charnel-houses of preceding gene- 

 rations, in which the petrified exuvise of extinct 

 races of animals and vegetables are piled into 

 stupendous monuments of the operations of life 

 and death, during almost immeasurable periods of 

 past time. "At the sight of a spectacle," says 

 Cuvier, <' so imposing, so terrible as that of the 

 wreck of animal lile, forming almost the entire 

 soil on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the 

 imagination from hazarding some conjectures as 

 to the cause by which such great effects have been 

 produced." The deeper we descend into the stra- 

 ta of the earth, the higher do we ascend into the 

 archaeological history of past ages of creation. We 

 find successive stages marked by varying forms of 

 animal and vegetable life, and these generally dif- 

 fer more and more widely from existing species as 

 we go further downwards into the receptacles of 

 the wreck of more ancient creations. * * * * 



' Besides the more obvious remains of testacea 

 and of larger animals, minute examination dis- 

 closes, occasionally, prodigious accumulations of 

 microscopic shells that surprise us no less by their 

 abundance than their extreme minuteness; the 

 mode in which they are sometimes crowded to- 

 gether may be estimated from the fact that Sol- 

 dani collected fi'om less than an ounce and a half 

 of stone, found in the hills of Casciana, in Tus- 

 cany, 10,454 microscopic chambered shells. * 

 * * Of several species of these shells, four or 

 five hundred weigh but a single grain; of one 

 species he calculates that a thousand individuals 

 would scarcely weigh one grain.' 



"Extraordinary as these phenomena must ap- 

 pear, the recent discoveries of Ehrenberg, made 

 since the publication of Dr. Buckland's work, are 

 still more marvellous and instructive. This emi- 

 nent naturalist, whose discoveries respecting the 

 existing infusorial animals we have already no- 

 ticed, has discovered fossil animalcules, or infuso- 

 rial organic remains ; and not only has he disco- 

 vered their existence by the microscope, but he 

 has found that they form extensive strata of tripo- 

 li, or poleschiefer (polishing slate,) at Franzen- 

 bad, in Bohemia — a substance supposed to have 

 been formed from sediments of fine volcanic ashes 

 in quiet waters. These animals belong to the 

 genus Bacillaria, and inhabit silicious shells, tlie 

 accumulation of which form the strata of polish- 

 ing slate. The size of a single individual of these 

 animalcules is about 1.288th of a line, or the 

 .3400th part of an inch. In the the polishing slate 

 from Bilin, in which there seems no extraneous 

 matter, and no vacuities, a cubic line contains, in 

 round numbers, 23,000,000 of these animals, and 

 a cubic inch 41,000,000,000 of them. The weight 

 of a cubic inch of the tripoli which contains them 

 is 270 grains. Hence there are 187,000,000 of 

 these animalcules in a single grain ; or the sili- 

 cious coat of one of these animals is the 18.000,- 

 000th part of a grain ! 



"Since this strange discovery was made, Mr. 

 Ehrenberg has detected the same fossil animals in 

 the semiopal, which is found along with the po- 

 lishing slate in the tertiary strata of Bilin, in the 

 chalk flints, and even in the semiopal or noble 

 opal of the porphyritic rocks. What a singular 



