716 
A letter of acknowledgment was received from the Royal 
Academy of Sciences in Lisbon, dated March 12, 1878 
(96, 98). 
A letter was received from the Count de Toronas, dated 
Madrid, April 16th, 1878, announcing the transmission of a 
donation for the Library, as a mark of friendly sympathy 
with the objects of the Society. 
Donations for the Library were received from the Society 
at Ulm; Revue Politique; Commercial Geographical So- 
ciety at Bordeaux; Flora Batava; Astronomical and Anti- 
quarian Societies of London; Editors of Financial Reform 
Almanac and Nature; Boston Natural History Society ; 
Museum of Comparative Zoology; Editors of Plum- 
ber and Sanitary Engineer, New York; Mr. W. E. Dubois 
of Philadelphia; Dr. Henry Hartshorne ; U. 8S. Geographi- 
eal and Geological Survey of the Territories, and Ministerio 
de Fomento, Mexico. 
The following communication was made by the Secretary, 
“¢A detailed section of the rocks included between the lower 
productive coal measures and the dark shales of the De- 
vonian, in the vicinity of Renova, Clinton Co., Pa., by. H. 
M. Chance, of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania.” 
The Secretary read portions of a letter from Mr. W. D. 
H. Mason, Williamstown, Pa., describing the circumstances 
of his recent discovery of reptilian footprints on a slab of 
slate rock from the shaft of the HKllengowan Colliery, over- 
lying the mammoth anthracite coal bed, in the Mahanoy 
Valley, Schuylkill Co., Pa., the original being in the posses- 
sion of Mr. Lorenz of the Reading R. R., to be deposited 
in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences. 
Letter of Mr. Wm. D. H. Mason, C. E., of Williamstown, Dauphin County, 
Pennsylvania, on the Batrachian Foot-trucks from the Ellengowan Shaft 
in Schuylkill County, Dated April 5, 1878. 
As an additional link added to knowledge in the mystery attending the 
process of creation going on during the coal formation, in which geologists 
have heretofore been almost unanimous in doubting the existence of higher 
animal life, the finding of the singularly clear fossil Batrachian foot-marks 
imprinted on the gray slaty sandstone overlying the mammoth seam of 
