394 Miscellanies. 



der Prof. Troost, is far advanced. This list will probably be much 

 extended in the course of the coming year. 



It is to be hoped that liberal appropriations of both time and 

 money may be made for these surveys by the states that undertake 

 them. Otherwise, instead of being economically advantageous, 

 they will be comparatively useless to the community, and more so to 

 science. 



12. Hemarks on the Geological features of Ohio, and some of 

 the desiderata which might be supplied hy a Geological survey of 

 the State. By John L. Riddell, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, 

 &,c. in Cincinnati College. 8vo. 12 pp. The nature of these few- 

 pages is fully expressed in the title. Among the interesting facts 

 mentioned, the following is particularly worthy of note. 



"De la Beche remarks, (Manual, p. 197,) that 'the relative age of 

 the deposit, in which the remains of the Mastodon maximus are 

 found, cannot be considered as very satisfactorily ascertained.' I am 

 happy in being able to contribute any thing which may throw light 

 on this matter. Three years since, the tusks and decayed bones of 

 an unusually large mastodon, commonly called mammoth, were 

 brought to light in ditching a quagmire, half a mile south of Massil- 

 lon. I. visited that locality on the ninth of last August. The remains 

 were found in a boggy morass, of less than two acres area. Around 

 it on three sides at least, are stationed rounded knolls, made up of 

 sand, gravel, argillaceous earth, pebbles, nodules of iron ore, and 

 water worn bowlders of grauwacke and primitive rocks. The same 

 diluvium is continued beneath the quagmire, the proper soil of which 

 is a black vegetable loam, approaching the nature of peat, and about 

 three feet in thickness. The precise situation where the tusks 

 were found, is near an old deer lick, just within the margin of the 

 morass, and about two rods west of the Ohio Canal. They were 

 enveloped in the loam and rested on the gravel and pebbles at the 

 bottom. Upon searching, my companion Mr. Lindsly, found only 

 a small friable piece of bone. This quagmire, indubitably belongs 

 to the group of modern formations, the gradual production of similar 

 quagmires being often observed in our own day. The North Amer- 

 ican mastodon became extinct then, in comparatively modern times; 

 doubtless Ions since the distribution of the ancient diluvium," 



