— ss CC 
. Fossil Bones found in Vermont. 263 
the railroad survey. The mean height of the lake is 90 feet 
above the level of the sea, making the height of the point, where 
the fossils were imbedded, 150 feet above the sea. The geolog- 
ical formation, in which they were found, is very clearly character- 
ized. It belongs to that portion of the Post-tertiary, which has 
sometimes been denominated the Pleistocene formation. This 
formation extends along the whole length of lake Champlain, and 
throughout the valley of the St. Lawrence. On the east side of 
the lake, in Vermont, it frequently attains a width of several miles, 
and, in places, exceeds 100 feet in depth. It consists, for the 
most part, of regularly stratified clay and sand, resting upon the 
Champlain rocks, or upon unstratified drift, and portions of it a- 
bound in marine bivalve fossil shells. These shells are of several 
Species, nearly, or quite all of which are now found in a living 
State, on the Atlantic shores of New England: and it is common 
to find them with their valves united, with their epidermis un- 
disturbed, and buried in such a position as to show, unequivocally, 
that they lived, propagated and died, in the places where they are 
found. The most abundant species is the Sanguinolaria Jusca, 
The Mya arenaria, Saricava rugosa and Mytilus edulis are quite 
common. Some other species are occasionally found. 
The cut for the railroad, in which these fossil bones were ob- 
tained, is nearly half a mile in length, extending from north to 
south, and its greatest depth is about eighteen feet. The depth 
of the cut, at the place where the skeleton was found, is ten feet. 
About four feet of this depth, reckoning from the natural surface 
of the ground, consists of sand, showing no signs of stratification. 
Next below this is a mixture of sand and clay, which is regularly 
and distinctly stratified, for a depth of two and a half feet, below 
which is a vast bed of fine blue clay, in which I observed no 
signs of stratification, and which appears to have been, previous to 
the deposit of the sand and clay above it, a kind of quagmire. 
In the lower part of the stratified sand and clay, and nearly in 
y of lake Champlain 
Burlington, Vt. Jan. 1, 1850. 
