y 
Claypole.] 230 [Sept. 21, 
year, it does not produce seed very freely. If this is true, one potent 
cause of its diminution and decay is obvious. 
Like some other plants apparently also verging towards extinction, 
such as the Big Trees of California, this little survivor of the old flora of 
Pennsylvania shows no disposition to spread in Perry county, even in 
directions where it is unmolested. Ground lost by such a species cannot 
well be recovered. Point after point has been ceded to its foes ; it has 
been killed off here and headed back there till now it lingers on this hill- 
side, its last stronghold in the State, and almost in the world. What 
special causes have enabled it thus and there to maintain its ground 
against its foes it is impossible to say, but its position is very precarious. 
A little more cultivation, a little more ploughing and harrowing, a little 
more ‘clearing up’’ and ‘burning of brush,’’ by the farmer, unaware of 
the value of what he was destroying, and the little Box Huckleberry will 
be numbered with the things that were and are not. Its only chance lies 
in the steepness and sterility of the hillside, which all botanists must hope 
will enable it long to maintain the unequal contest against so many dan- 
gerous foes. Perry county and Centre township will then continue to 
boast the possession of a natural botanical garden, containing one of the 
most interesting vegetable relics on earth. 
APPENDIX. 
August, 1883. The fruit of the Box Huckleberry is now ripe, and com- 
pared with that of other species is scanty. The berries grow singly and 
not one plant in ten is productive. They are edible, but lack sweetness, 
and are hence perhaps less attractive to animals. The blossom in early 
May was profuse, more so than that of its kindred species. The fruit is 
of the same size as theirs and is covered with a bloom like that of the low 
blueberry. 
On the Kquivalent of the New York Portage, in Perry County, Middle Penn- 
sylwania. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Soetety, September 21, 18: 3g) 
THe CARDIOLA SHALE. 
About 200 feet above the Fenestella shale, the topmost bed of the 800 
feet of Hamilton Upper shale, which in Perry county is the highest layer 
in which a Hamilton fauna occurs, isa mass of shale differing in some 
respects from that above and below it. Though no sharp plane of limita- 
tion can be drawn at its base to separate it from the 200 (2) feet of barren. 
black slate which is here the representative of the New York Genesee 
shale (so far as hitherto determined), yet a good physical distinction be- 
tween the two is afforded in the field by the bleaching of the latter under 
the action of the air and light., This is so complete that a bank of weath- 
