19% Miscellanies. 



Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences of Berlin, for February, 1839. 

 He found it to contain fourteen kinds of siliceous infusory animals, 

 viz. 



Cocconema asperum, n. sp. 



Eunotia Arcus. 

 " Diodon. 



Navicula alata. 



" amphioxys, n. sp, 



" Suecica. 



" viridis. 



" viridula. 



Fragillaria trionodis. 



Gallionella distans. 



Goraphonema paradoxum. 



Spongilla lacustris ? (Spongia ?) 



Spongia apiculata. (Tethya ?) n. sp. 



Amphidiscus Rotula. (nov. genus?) 

 The most predominating forms are Gallionella distans, Navicula 

 viridis, and numerous fragments of the needle-shaped Spongia;, 

 Besides these animal remains, a very considerable quantity of the 

 fossil pollen of the Pine was also observed, wholly similar to that 

 which is found in Europe under the same circumstances. Six of these 

 fossil American species, it is further mentioned, are known as living 

 species in Europe. Four others are known in Europe as fossils, of 

 which three have been observed only in the '■'■ Mountain-meaV 

 (Bergmehl) of Sweden and Finland. Needle-shaped Spongise have 

 also been found in a fossil state in Sicily. The Amphidiscus, which 

 is indicated as a new genus, Prof. Ehrenberg thinks may possibly be 

 only the inner portion of some peculiar Spongia or Tethya. In shape 

 it is a cylinder with a disk at each end, as the name denotes, and is 

 compared to a thread-spool, {Zwirn-Rollchen.) Vide Bericht Ver- 

 handl. k. Preuss. AJcademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin for Feb- 

 ruary, 1839, p. 31. The Amphidiscus has not been detected in Eu- 

 rope ; but since the date of the above notice, we learn from Prof. 

 Ehrenberg, that he has discovered the same species among other fos- 

 sil infusoria from the banks of the Amazon. We would inform the 

 curious in such matters, that deposits of the kind are very common 

 in the United States, in situations similar to that in which they were 

 first noticed ; and those who have suitable microscopes, may readily 

 obtain them for examination, and will probably discover many new 

 forms. The deposits of nearly pure siliceous infusorial remains in 

 some parts of Germany, are twenty or thirty feet in thickness, and 

 several miles in extent. 



