No. 136.] 79 



quity; and it is possible that they are not as old as the animal 

 relics with which they occur. 



A few fossils from the Lower or Older Tertiary strata around 

 Paris in France, are in a case on the second floor. They are 

 chiefly shells, and all or nearly all, of extinct species, though 

 strongly resembling those now found in the seas of mild or warm 

 climates. 



Of the various formations newer than the Carboniferous which 

 we have passed in review, many are represented in difierent parts 

 of North America, but not in so unbroken a succession as in 

 Europe. Thus the Permian formation is believed to exist in 

 Kansas : the Connecticut sandstone, so largely quarried for the 

 New- York market, is regarded as having been formed during the 

 same period with the European Triassic or Lower Jurassic 

 strata ; marls and clays of Cretaceous age, and containing many 

 fossils similar to those of the European Chalk lie all along the 

 Atlantic coast from New-Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico ; and Ter- 

 tiary strata are found in all the Southern States. A very re- 

 markable series of Tertiary strata exists also near the Upper 

 Missouri, en White river, called the ''Mauvais Torres" or 

 " Bad Lands," from which many remarkable fossils were recently 

 collected for the Smithsonian Institution. They consist of 

 skulls and bones of several extinct quadrupeds, some carni- 

 vorous ; others herbivorous, some of them of aquatic habits ; 

 and shells of fossil turtles. These " Mauvais Terre " strata 

 appear to be of freshwater formation. 



The natural monuments of geology since the Tertiary period 

 are few : the most remarkable being the enormous accumulations 

 of gravel, sand and clay which are found so widely spread, and 

 which are known as the 



DRIFT. 



This is well seen in almost all parts of this State, in almost every 

 gravel-bank : it consists of waterworn fragments of the old rocky 

 strata; pebbles of limestone, sandstone and slate, with some of 

 { gneiss and granite, which universally appear to have been trans- 



