10 



"The interesting fossil from Kittatinny Mountain does not 

 seem a Cryptozoon after all. While Cryptozoon is a calcareous 

 alga, this specimen consists of quartz grains. I considered it pos- 

 sible that the quartz might be pseudomorphous after calcite, 

 but Mr. Newland [Mr. D. H. Newland, State Geologist of New 

 York] assures me that the fossil is composed of true sand-grains, 

 or has the same composition as the matrix. It therefore seems 

 that the body must have been a mud-ball such as are found in 



sandstone, and that the clay or lime or whatever held the sand- 

 grains together has been dissolved out. Such balls form on the 

 bottom of rivers and shores with sandy bottoms. The concentric 

 shells are so regularly spaced that the thing is most deceptive. 

 It is really too bad that it is not a cryptozoon, it would be such 

 an interesting find." 



Meanwhile I had written to Dr. Marshall A. Howe, Assist- 

 ant Director of the New York Botanical Garden, who is an au- 

 thority on living and fossil algae and who has described some- 

 what similar ring-like formations as undoubted fossil algae, in 

 shales and limestones. Dr. Howe seemed to think it possible 

 that the Kittatinny "problematicum," both from photographs 



