Miscellaneous. 259 
discovered. With great care and precaution the following fragments 
were obtained :—three claws of eight to twelve centimetres in length, 
several other phalanges with fine articular surfaces, a part of the 
tarsus and metatarsus, two vertebree joined, and several other frag- 
ments. The dimensions of these bones is such that the whole length 
of the animal cannot have been less than from thirty to forty 
metres. [?] 
These remains lay in the upper strata of the Keuper, visibly 
overlapped by the lower Lias. These formations have heretofore 
been considered as devoid of organic remains in this country (France) 
where they contain gypsum and rock-salt. Nevertheless, some years 
ago, M. Pidancet, a geologist of the Franche-Comté, found in these 
same strata large bones, which he deposited in the museum of Be- 
sancon, and which he considers as belonging to the same species. 
Besides, a few months ago, near Domblans, while opening a ditch 
for the railroad, a similar fragment was found ; and M. Lauckardt, 
one of the employés, has seen at the same place other bones, much 
larger, which he could not remove on account of their fragility. 
Another discovery, not less important, was made by M. Fro- 
ment, mayor of Saint Lothaire, in strata younger than the Keuper 
formation. The bones found there belong to the Elephas primigenius 
and to a kind of Stag; among them are two molar teeth beautifully 
preserved. ‘This deposit of bones is in a layer of sand and marl 
containing boulders of quartz and numerous fragments of terrestrial 
and fresh-water shells, but no trace of human remains.—Silliman’s 
Journal for January 1862. 
On the general conditions of the Avicula contorta Beds, and on the 
constitution of the Infra-Liassic stage. By Ant. Stoppant. 
The little fossil which bears the name of Avicula contorta was 
scarcely known a few years ago. General Portlock first named it, in 
1843, after his geological investigation of a part of Ireland. By 
degrees this fossil has acquired great importance, which is due to 
its abundance, and to the extent of the beds in which it has been 
deposited. 
The first part of M. Stoppani’s memoir contains a historical sum- 
mary of the investigation of the beds which occur on the horizon of 
the Avicula contorta, the description of the characters of these beds, 
and the indication of their thickness, which appears to be but small 
in England, about 12 metres on the northern slope of the Alps, and 
from 800 to 1000 feet in Lombardy. As regards their extent, they 
are known in Ireland and England, in Wiirtemberg and Bavaria, in 
Westphalia, Luxembourg, and the departments of the Moselle, of La 
Meurthe, of the Cote d’Or, de Yonne and of the Rhone, in the 
Cevennes, in Savoy, in Switzerland, in the Vorarlberg, and at other 
points of the chain of the Alps as far as Hungary. Throughout, 
these beds form a convenient and clear horizon. 
In his second part, M. Stoppani describes the Avicula-contorta 
beds in Lombardy, previously studied by MM. Collegno, Escher, and 
Omboni. These beds are there represented by the deposit of the 
