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size, of porpoises, of terrapins, and shells of various 

 kinds, in immense quantities, are founa in digging of 

 pits or wells, or washed out of the banks of rivers, at, 

 or near low icater mark, and in one instance fossil re- 

 mains of a bird of a large size*. 



In North and South Carolina, similar discoveries 

 have been made in one instance the skeleton of a 

 shark, forty feet in length, was found nearly entire, 

 some of the teeth of which are nearly four inches broad 

 at their base, and may be seen in the cabinet of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, in New York, 



The circumstances of the fossil remains of fishes of 

 various kinds, being so widely distributed over such an 

 extent of country, is calculated to excite, in the en- 

 quiring mind, a degree of wonder and astonishment; 

 while with many, it is viewed with a cold and inex- 

 cusable indifference ; either because it so frequently 

 occurs, and is so common ; or, with others still more 

 enlightened, because occurrences of a similar nature, 

 as is supposed, are frequent, and have long since been 

 known to exist in different parts of the world. But if 

 the subject were examined with due attention, and the 

 various circumstances considered in all their bearings 

 and relations, few would hesitate to acknowledge, that 

 scarce a parallel case exists in the known world. 



How, or in what way, those fossil remains were 

 brought and deposited in the manner and where they 



* See Philosophical Transactions, vol. iv, p. 457, and British py 

 page 19, sixth edition. 



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