197 LiGNiTic Stage 5 



Aim and scope of this work. 



Bulletin No. 4 was devoted to the statigraphj^ and paleon- 

 tology of the lowest or Midway stage of the Eocene as 

 developed in the Mississippi basin. This bulletin treats of the 

 Lignitic as developed in the same basin. Time, however, has 

 prevented a discussion of the univalves in this part of the 

 work, but they will be taken up at once with the resumption 

 of laboratory work in the fall. 



Little need here be said regarding the general aim and 

 purpose of this work, for it is a continuation of Bulletin No. 4. 

 (See Bull. Am. Pal., vol. i, p. 119.) 



Collections of fossils, field notes, etc., on which this 

 work is based. 



The Cornell University Expedition of i8<ps. — A brief account 

 of this expedition was given in Bull. 4, p. 5, and it remains here 

 only to say that while the Midway stage was the special subject 

 of study during 1895, frequent detours were made into nearby 

 Cretaceous as well as Lignitic or even higher beds. The 

 following fossiliferous Lignitic outcrops were visited : Nanafalia, 

 Tuscahoma and Woods bluff on the Tombigbee and Ft. Gaines 

 on the Chattahoochee. 



Tlie Cor?iell University Expedition of 1896. — In the spring 

 of this year the Trustees of Cornell University generously 

 repeated the appropriation of 1895, thus enabling Mr. W. S. 

 Hubbard and the writer to again visit the Gulf and Atlantic 

 States. The Lignitic outcrops of note in Alabama were exam- 

 ined from the Tombigbee on the west, to near Ft. Gaines on 

 the east. The Midway beds at Black bluff were examined, 

 and the line of nonconformability between the Cretaceous and 

 basal Eocene not far south of Moscow Ferry was thoroughly 

 explored. The well known Encliniatoceras ulrichi and Ostrea 

 pulaskensis were found here as elsewhere just above the 

 nonconformability. Better fossils were moreover obtained from 

 a bluff opposite to and about yi mile below Matthew's Landing 

 on the Alabama. More perfect specimens of several species 

 described from Clayton were also obtained. 



Detours were made to the south of the Lignitic belt, including 

 one as far as Jackson on the Tombigbee and Claiborne on 

 the Alabama. Midway beds were traced to near Putnam, Ga., 



