148 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



Another Clinton specimen obtained last week from the Medina 

 quarry, near the reservoir, seems undetermined. The same may be 

 said of a few more also from the lower series nearer the city, all of 

 which are submitted for examination. 



On a recent visit to Hamilton by Dr. Hall, of Albany, his 

 attention was called to what the late Professor Billings remarks rel- 

 ative to that curious fossil figured in the second volume of the 

 Palaeontology of New York. The furrow of mine collected from the 

 Chazy sandstone by Sir Wm. Logan, differs from the one in the 

 Clinton rock. It does not run the whole length as in the latter. 

 You may note while the distinguished palaeontologist agrees with 

 Dr. Hall in its classification as a portion of an Alga or Fucoid, he 

 refrains from suggesting an explanation which may be permitted in a 

 mere amateur. Instead of representing the seed pod of the sea plants 

 may it not have been a bladder-like expansion to keep the Alga 

 afloat? Such are known to exist in the North Pacific at the present 

 time. The Nereocystes Lutkeana, in the vicinity of Sitka^ has a 

 stem-like whipcord which terminates in an air vessel. 



The Clinton specimens here at Hamilton occur in what I have 

 called the alga bed ; where found in other layers, the detached or 

 broken-off bladders, may be imbedded in a higher bed. On one 

 occasion I found six of them on a small piece of shale with a 

 fragment of the stalk seemingly attached to a specimen. 



