44 FOSSIL REMAINS. [CHAP. III. 



walrus, similar to one procured by me in Martha s Vineyard,* 

 and other teeth, since determined for me by Professor Owen as 

 belonging to the buffalo or American bison. These are, I be 

 lieve, the first examples of land quadrupeds discovered in beds of 

 this age in the United States. The accompanying shells consist 

 ed of the common mussel (Hfytilus edulis), Saxciava rugosa, 

 ]\Iya arenaria, Pecten Islandicus, and species of the genera 

 Astartc, Nucula, &c. The horizontal beds of clay and sand 

 which contain these remains of northern species, and which 

 imply that the whole region was beneath the sea at no distant 

 period, impart to the scenery of the country bordering the Kerme- 

 bec its leading features. The deposit of clay and sand is 170 

 feet thick in some places, and numerous valleys 70 feet deep are 

 hollowed out of it by every small stream. At Augusta I saw 

 this modern tertiary formation, 100 feet thick, resting on a ledge 

 of mica schist, the shells being easily obtained from an under 

 mined cliff of clay. Tn some places, as at Gardiner, conical hil 

 locks, chiefly of gravel, about fifty feet high, and compared here, 

 on account of the regularity of their form, to Indian mounds^ 

 stand isolated near the river. I conceive them to owe their 

 shape to what the geologists term &quot; denudation,&quot; or the action 

 of waves and currents, which, as the country was rising gradu- 

 al]y out of the sea, removed the surrounding softer clay arid left 

 these masses undestroyed. They would offer resistance to the 

 force of moving water by the great weight and size of their com 

 ponent materials ; for in them we find not only pebbles, but 

 many large boulders of granite and other rocks. 



Mr. Allen drove us in his carriage to Augusta, six miles from 

 Gardiner, and 200 miles N.E. of Boston, where we visited the 

 State House, handsomely built in the Grecian style, with a por 

 tico and large columns, the stone used being the white granite of 

 this country. The rooms for the two houses of the legislature 

 are very convenient. I was shown the library by the governor, 

 who called my attention to some books and maps on geology, and 

 talked of a plan for resuming the geological survey of the State, 

 not yet completed. 



* See &quot; Travels,&quot; vol. i. p. 256. 



