VALLKV Ol THE MISSISSIPPI, 



conglomerates of this vicinity have with the testa 

 ceous lime .-stone, I cannot pretend to say ; they do 

 not indeed contain impressions of shells, though 

 fragments of lignite, and silici^ed wood have been, 

 found imbedded in the siliceous conglomerate. On 

 the high road to Richmond, in the exposed declivity 

 of the barren pine-hills, a few miles from the coal- 

 mines, I found fragments of transformed wood, pe- 

 net-rated with quartz of an opaque white color, des- 

 titute of the resinous fracture, and easily crumbling 

 into an almost impalpable sand. These fragments, 

 however, occurring in beds of disintegrated, and 

 amorphous chrystalline quartz, in which also appears 

 the oldest conglomerate* of cloudy and pale blue 

 quartz, are more probably referable to the an* 

 cient beds of the transition. Of the small impor- 

 tance, however^ which ought to be attached to the 

 relative antiquity of transition rocks, and particu 

 larly to those which are so evidently mechanical in 

 their structure as the conglomerates and sand-stones, 

 we have an almost unexpected example, in the re* 

 cent discovery of bones imbedded in the old red 

 sand-stone of New-Haven, 35 feet below the surface 5 

 a circumstance, in itself, sufficiently curious, without 

 introducing the improbable conjecture of the remains 

 being human. 



* As it regards the strata of the United States, and always 

 occurring from the state of New York to Georgia, imbedded 

 in the mica-slate- 



