C.S. Hale on the Geology of South Alabama. 361 
the most important results are often produced by the simplest 
means.” For what can seem more insignificant than one o 
these _ discoidal organisms more attenuated than the thinnest 
r the still smaller coralline forms scarcely distinguisha- 
able a a microscopic fibre? But i ificant as they a 
in a separate point of view, they constitute the entire mass | 
many of these limestone hills. 
In addition to this mass of zoophytes, may also be noticed 
various species of Echinoderms, some of which are quite unique ; 
they belong to the genera, Spatangus, Scutella, and Echinus. 
pe species of Spatangus is very similar to 8. retusa, a cretaceous 
Os a 
It ‘be presumed, from this similarity of fauna, that the 
callie, in which the two formations were produced, could 
not have been very different. If the Mississippi equivalent of the 
white limestone, which is a bluish marly limestone, were taken 
for the type, it must be admitted that a striking similarity also 
exists even in their mineral character. 
The molluscs peculiar to these beds are Spondylus dumosum, 
Pecten Poulsoni, P. perplanata, Ostrea panda, O. cretacea, and 
indeterminate casts of Cyprea, Conus, Natica, Mya, and Modiola. 
he remains of fish are principally of the Placoid order, as th 
ray, shark, and pristis. But the most wonderful of all these asso- 
ciated tribes, is the noted cetacean called the Zeuglodon. 
The metropolis of this strange inhabitant appears to have been 
T 
as the state of Arkansas, and per: to South Carolina. 
Their geological situation is in the tertiary beds immediately be- 
low the orbitolite limestone, near the denuded surface of those 
gentle declivities which form a step to the summit of these hills. 
‘They are seldom found in their natural position—but in many 
aaieee appear to have been torn, by some disturbing cause, 
rom their ancient resting place and scattered to remote distances. 
We are informed by some of the early settlers that entire skele- 
tons were formerly exposed upon the surface of the earth, and 
that these remains were in some instances so abundant as to be- 
* We omit here some descriptive —_ on the Zeuglodon, as the skeleton 
has been \ senteaiot described with more fullness. —Eps. 
Szcoxp Srrizs, Vol. VI, No. 18.—Nov., 1648. 47 
