214 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



at Burliiijrtoii at about 202 feet; at Charlotte, at 150 feet; at 

 Panton, 320 feet. 



Mr S. P. Baldwin in 1894 reported other occurrences as fol- 

 lows: at Verf^ennes at nearly 250 feet; from central Addison 

 northward at almost any i)oint less than 150 feet; at Shelburne 

 Falls at ISO feet; in the northern part of Shelburne shells are 

 reported as high up as 400 feet (?) ; in the delta of tlie Lamoille, 

 shells in the vicinity of a terrace risin^^ to 450 feet. 



The localities at which shells have actually been observed by 

 competent witnesses in Vermont agree very closely with the range 

 of the highest localities in New York. A tilted plane standing 

 at an elevation of 450 feet at the northern boundary of the state 

 and meeting the surface of Lake Champlain at Whitehall w^onld 

 lie above the localities at which there is good evidence of marine 

 shells. The apparent exceptions are both noted in Mr Baldwin's 

 paper. First and most important is the reported occurrence of 

 fossil shells by the Vermont Survey of 1861 in Elgin spring at 

 Panton, at an elevation of 320 feet in the latitude of Essex N. Y. 

 Messrs Baldwin and Richardson on visiting the locality state 

 that they were unable to find any trace of the shells. If, as I 

 understand it, the original report was based on shells believed 

 to have been seen in a spring, little reliance could be placed on 

 shells actually so found for the reason that the shells may have 

 been washed out from the underlvinor loose sand and clav of the 

 Pleistocene series and carried upward to the mouth of the spring, 

 a position in which it is common to find rock particles swept 

 upward from a depth. I have, in view of these considerations, 

 been led to reject the Panton locality. 



The second case is that of shells reported to Mr Baldwin at 

 an elevation as high as 400 feet in the northern part of Shelburne. 

 This locality appears from the evidence in New York to be too 

 far south for shells at so high an elevation and as Mr Baldwin 

 did not see them I am inclined to think he may have been mis- 

 led, as I was early in my search for shells in this field, by descrip- 

 tions well meant but totally misleading which I also was able 

 to obtain from some of the inhabitants. One very })romising 

 case of shells having according to my informant all the char- 

 acters of a Macoma of some sort turned out on going with hira 



