FOSSIL FINBACK OF GAY HEAD. 283 



up on the ancient shore, and became gradually disintegrated by the tides. No parts of crania 

 have yet been found that might more clearly show the identity of the species. The layer 

 containing the bones is exposed near the top of a seaward bluff, and as the cliff becomes weath- 

 ered away they are often washed to the shore below. William Baylies, 1 as long ago as 1793, 

 in writing of Gay Head noticed that "the bones of whales, sharks' teeth, and petrified shell 

 fish, are frequently picked up, scattered up and down the cliff, at a considerable distance 

 above the surface of the water." Charles Lyell also mentioned them briefly in 1842-3, and 

 on Richard Owen's authority, identified some of the vertebrae as those of whalebone whales. 



The Miocene beds of Gay Head, on Martha's Vineyard, and at Marshfield, Mass., are 

 the most northerly strata of this age yet discovered on the eastern American coast. They 

 lie unconformably upon the pre-Tertiary deposits, and "consist of two members which are 

 strikingly different from each other in their lithologic composition. The lower member, 

 the so-called 'osseous conglomerate' of Hitchcock, is a bed from 12 to 18 inches thick. It 

 is composed of medium sized pebbles of quartz, chert, calcedony and fragments of cetacean 

 bones. The presence of these bones in the formation suggested the name 'osseous con- 

 glomerate.' The upper member which lies immediately above the osseous conglomerate, is a 

 bed of greensand which varies in thickness from nothing to 10 feet. At its base it carries 

 rolled fragments of the under-lying stratum, showing that it was deposited unconformably on 

 the osseous conglomerate" (W. B. Clark, Maryland Geol. Surv., Miocene, 1904, p. Ixv). 



At Marshfield, near Duxbury, Mass., these same beds again appear, with their associated 

 fossils. Dr. C. T. Jackson, in 1850, called attention to this discovery, and at a meeting of the 

 Society on August 7th, of that year, announced that he had received from this deposit "a shark's 

 tooth, a cetacean vertebra, Lignite, and a cast of Tellina." They were obtained from "a clay 

 marl, over a green sand, thirty feet from the surface; they were precisely like those found at 

 Gay Head." 2 



Indian Myth of their Origin. 



The Indians of Martha's Vineyard had no doubt been long familiar with these bones that 

 washed from the cliffs, and had a legend to account for them, and other whale bones washed 

 up. Baylies, who visited the locality in 1793, preserves their story as told him by them. He 

 wrote, in part, "In former times, the Indian God, Moiship, resided in this part of the island; 

 and made the crater, described above, [the Devil's Den] his principal seat. To keep up his 

 fires, he pulled up the largest trees by the roots; on which, to satisfy his hunger, he broiled 

 the whale, and the great fish of the sea, throwing out the refuse sufficient to cover several 

 acres. He did not consume all himself; but with a benevolent hand, often supplied them [the 



1 Baylies, William. Description of Gay Head. Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., 1793, vol. 2, p. 155. 



2 Jackson, C. T. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1850, vol. 3, p. 324. 



