116 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



college, who cannot be surpassed in skill, talent and genius in 

 this matter, I predict valuable results for the farmers of Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Prof. Agassiz. I wish to say a few words upon the subject to 

 which President Clark has alluded, which is, perhaps, of greater 

 importance than might be supposed at first sight. 



I have seen and known something of these deposits of lime 

 in South Carolina. Some fifteen or eighteen years ago, when 

 delivering some lectures in the medical school in Charleston, I 

 saw some specimens of this phosphate of lime, which, however, 

 was not considered of much importance then ; and it is perhaps 

 well that it should be understood why, because, otherwise, the 

 fact that no application of it has been made might raise a preju- 

 dice against it. This article, known so long, has acquired im- 

 portance only recently. When it was found, it was found in 

 connection with the Charleston marl. At that time, there was 

 a gentleman greatly interested in the progress of agriculture in 

 the Southern States, Mr. Ruskin, who advocated manuring 

 with marl. That gentleman had great inflinence all over the 

 Soutli, and he brought the Charleston marl into such credit it 

 drove every other consideration out of thought. Marl was the 

 manure then, and it prevented any experiment with the new 

 article ; and I have no doubt that Mr. Ruskin, while he intro- 

 duced a very valuable manure into the agricultural districts of 

 the South, prevented an appreciation of this deposit, which was 

 known eighteen years ago. 



This deposit, as a geological deposit, is of great interest, be- 

 cause we have nowhere else in the world anything like it. It is 

 of very recent origin, and rests upon marls. It is a very super- 

 ficial deposit. I have no very decided opinion to express about 

 it, but only a suggestion to make. All over the southern parts 

 of South America, in the pampas, especially in the Argentine 

 Republic, there are deposits of very recent geological forma- 

 tion, which have been known for half a century to scientific 

 men, containing an immense amount of fossil remains — bones. 

 The museum at Buenos Ayres contains a vast amount of these 

 curious relics, all of them belonging to extinct races. A few of 

 them have been sent to Europe, and have been the objects of 

 admiration for their perfection. Now, these deposits are so full 

 of these bones that if they had become decomposed they would 



