Miscellanies. 213 



MISCELLANIES. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



1. Notes on the Cretaceous Strata of Neio Jersey and parts of the 

 United Slates bordering the Atlantic ; by C. Lyell. — The cretaceous 

 formation of New Jersey resembles its European equivalent in mineral 

 character, with the important exception that the white chalk with flints, 

 and the chert, so common in our green sand, are wanting. The Amer- 

 ican strata, consisting of green sand and marl, red and highly ferru- 

 ginous sandstones, white sand, limestone, and some beds of lignite, 

 have been usually compared to our lower cretaceous series, with which 

 they correspond in lithological character, but in their fossils they agree 

 far more nearly with the European strata, ranging from the Gault to 

 the Msestricht beds inclusive. 



Dr. Morton pointed out in 1834 the general agreement of the organic 

 remains of these American strata with those of the chalk and green 

 sand of Europe, while Mr. Conrad correctly pronounced almost all the 

 species to be new and distinct. 



Mr. Lyell, in an excursion in September, 1841, in company with Mr. 

 Conrad, collected in New Jersey a large portion of the fossil shells de- 

 scribed and figured by Dr. Morton, together with some new species. 

 Having examined the whole, with the assistance of Mr. E. Forbes and 

 others, he finds not more than four in sixty species of shells identical 

 with European fossils. These are Belemnites mucronatus, Pecten quin- 

 quecostatus, Ostrea falcata, ( 0. larva, Goldfuss,) and O. vesicularis. 

 Several others however approach very nearly, and may be the same 

 as European species, and at least fifteen may be regarded as geograph- 

 ical representatives of well known chalk fossils of Europe, belonging 

 for the most part to beds above the Gault. There are a few peculiar 

 forms, such as Terebratula Sayii, a new species of Bulla, and others, 

 unknown in Europe. 



Prof. H. D. Rogers has divided the New Jersey beds into five forma- 

 tions, two of which are rich in organic remains. The lower of these 

 consists chiefly of green sand or marl, the upper is a calcareous rock. 

 The corals obtained in the latter by Mr. Lyell at Timber Creek, twelve 

 miles southeast of Philadelphia, have been referred by Mr. Lonsdale to 

 the following species — 



Montivaltia Atlantica, [Anthophyllum Atlanticum, Morton,) Idmonea 

 contortilis, sp. n., Alecto fascicularis, sp. n., Cellepora tululata, Es- 

 charina sagena, {Flustra sagena, Morton,) Eschara digitata, Morton. 



The same coralline rock contains echinoderms of the genera Spa- 

 tangus, (Holaster, Agassiz,) Cidaris, and other forms closely allied to 

 upper cretaceous fossils of Europe. It also abounds in Foraminifera 



