4 PAUEONTOLOOY OF NEW-YORK. 



Thia shell is somewhat variable in form, as represented in the figures ; but the apex is. 

 uniformly acute, and the surface of the shell marked by concentric stria;. It approaches in 

 form to iJie L. acuminaia of Conrad ; and I am unable to point out the difference, having 

 only a drawing of tliat shell. In many cases, this shell, in the Potsdam sandstone, is almost 

 wholly absorbed, a mere film remaining, showing the form of the shell. By taking extreme 

 forms of tills species, since the shell is so obsciu-e, it would not be difficult to indicate two- 

 distinct species. 



Fig. 3 a. The usual form of this fossil 



Fig. 3 5. A broader specimen, wiih apex wanting. 



Fig. 3 c. A very broad somewhat rounded specimen, a view of the interior of the shell, the inner laminsB- 



wanting, and the concentric elevated lines showing in relief. 

 Fig. 3 d. An elongated specimen, somewhat compressed laterally. 

 Fig. 3 e. An enlarged portion of 3 c. 



Position arid locality. In the grey friable variety of this rock in the town of Hammond,. 

 Su Lawrence county, and near Alexandria landing in Jefferson county. (State Collection.) 



We look upon these minute fossils with no ordinary degree of interest, as having been,^ 

 for a long period, almost the only representatives of animal life, at least upon this portion 

 of our globe.* We find other species of the same genus in nearly every group in the New- 

 York system, while others have flourished in every geological period, and many are still 

 living in our present seas. In opposition to very commonly received notions, we here find, 

 as the earliest representative of the animal race, species of a still existing genus, showing 

 Uiat the conditions of that primeval ocean were in many respects similar to our own. We 

 see, so far as the evidence goes, that external conditions were then as favorable to this form 

 of life as at present ; and though subsequently immense numbers of forms were called into 

 existence, differing from (he common and numerous forms of the present day, still, since 

 some similar forms do occur during all this time, we are justified in supposing that the 

 conditions then existing were not very dissimilar from those at the present time, where such 

 forms now flourish. 



The form of these LingultB scarcely differs from that of some of the modern or existing 

 species, showing that through all this time nature has worked upon the same principle in 

 the production of her works ; and the little shell of modern seas is produced, in form and 

 appearance, and in action and habit, like the little shells which flourished in the earliest 

 era of life upon this globe ; a period so incalculably lost in the past, that we can have no 

 conception of the time that has elapsed between. 



* Prof. H. D. Rogers has inrortned me tha! he believes he has obtained a species of Orbicula from this rock, thus 

 ■dding a third species, all belonging to genera which flourished in nearly every subsequent period, and of which 

 •peeics still exist Mr. Lteu. also remarks that he obtained at Kccscville a placunoid fossil associated with the 

 UngtUa ( Travel*, p. 132). 



