Miscellanies. 



401 



junior editor, of Sept. 6th, Prof. Bailey remarks, " I have given to the 

 '■prairie chaW which you sent me, from the Upper Mississippi, a some- 

 what hasty examination ; but I found it, as I ventured to predict, full 

 of the ' elegantly little.' It is indeed richer in the beautiful forms of 

 the polythalmia than any American specimen I have yet seen, and 

 many of the forms are entirely different from those of New Jersey, Al- 

 abama, and Upper Missouri. The following are rude outlines of some 

 of the most common forms, sketched hastily with camera lucida and 

 microscope. 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 



[The scale represents j\p^ millimetre magnified equally with the 

 figures.] 



" In some of the cells are spots, (see fig. 2.) I am ignorant of their 

 nature, whether ova or animalcules I cannot decide. I cannot make 

 out the nature of the large brown fragments in the same specimen, nor 

 of the fragment sent in the little box, and which you compared to ver- 

 tebrae of fish with the spines broken off — they are all evidently of animal 

 origin." 



Prof. Bailey has also found very interesting forms of polythalmia in 

 '''iihe specimens brought by Mr. J. N. Nicollet from the ' far west ;' it 

 will be remembered that in our last number, we published under the 

 proceedings of the associated geologists at Philadelphia, an interesting 

 narrative of this gentleman, giving an account of his important obser- 

 vations in that region. We had hoped to insert in the present number, 

 some more extended notice of these matters, showing in what an inter- 

 esting and unexpected manner the observations of Prof. Bailey on the 

 limestones of Alabama, and the localities above named, had connected 

 themselves with similar observations by Prof. Ehrenberg. 



Mr. Thos. Weaver has published (L. E. and D. Phil. Mag. for May, 

 June, 1841,) a paper on the organic bodies composing the chalk and 

 chalk marl, as drawn from observations of Dr. Ehrenberg, with some 

 notice of the researches of M. D'Orbigny ; a condensed abstract of this 

 interesting memoir was prepared for our present number, but the 

 crowded state of our pages requires its postponement. 



Vol. xLi, No. 2.— July-Sept. 1841. 51 



