166 Correspondence. [July, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



We have received an interesting letter from our friend, M. de 

 Verneuil, in which he gives a brief account of an interesting dis- 

 covery which he has made in the Ohio coal field. It shows the 

 remarkable similarity of all the great formations of this country 

 to those of Europe. We make only a brief extract: 



" I have made in the carboniferous formations of Ohio a very in- 

 teresting discovery for me, as a Russian traveler. The burrh stone, 

 or mill stone of this country, is a siliceous band which occupies 

 about the central part of the carboniferous series. This stone is 

 full of small cavities, similar to the impression due to a grain of 

 corn or wheat. These cavities, as I assured myself, have been 

 filled by a small animal of the class of the foraminiferffi which 

 the Professor Fisher has called in Russia, fusulina cylindrica. 

 You will easily understand the pleasure I felt to find my old tra- 

 veling guide. In Russia, the fusulina occupies principally the 

 highest division of the carboniferous limestone, and here it is con- 

 fined also to the coal series; but what is the most astonishing is, 

 that in the old continent, the fusulina is exclusively found in Rus- 

 sia, where it constitutes hills of two hundred feet, entirely com- 

 posed of them. When you come to Germany or the British 

 islands, the fusulina is wanting; so it seemed to us that it was a 

 being organized for eastern countries. Is it not interesting to find 

 on this side of the Atlantic our good Russian friend?" 



Tesheevah Plantation, Yazoo Co., June 6th, 1S46. 



Dr. E. Emmons, — I received a few days since your esteemed 

 favor of 28th April, containing the analysis of Yazoo marl; I also 

 received the first No. of the Quarterly Journal for the present year. 



The analysis is very satisfactory as far as it goes, but as my 

 principal object was to know the per centage of lime in the marl, 

 I am sorry " the shelly parf^ was taken out — and must therefore 

 beg of you the favor of another analysis of the marl, with the 

 shelly part in; as I said before, the result of the analysis is satis- 

 factory, and has considerably raised my opinion of the value of 

 the marl as a fertilizer; for if the earthy part contains 10.34 per 

 cent of carbonate of lime, without the shelly part, I think with 

 it, it must contain enough to make the marl valuable, as well as 

 probably some phosphate of lime. 



We take this opportunity for saying that we deem it unimpor- 

 tant to analyze the shells of a marl bed — they are rich and valu- 

 able on all kinds of soil. The shells of oysters and clams are 

 almost entirely a carbonate of lime, with but little animal matter, 

 and a trace of phosphate of lime. The shells of crabs and lobsters 

 contain from 50 to 60 per cent of carb. lime, and from 3 to 6 of 

 phosphate, the rest being carbonate of lime. 



