F. B. Meek on fossils from Kennedy Channel, 31 
escaping destruction by conflagration.” And with these, there 
are the sedges, and the hard cep like the Andropogons, which 
seek a siliceous soil, and whose tissue is so hardened by silica that 
their culms are not even aemen by the autumnal fires. These, 
and indeed many of the species of the high prairies of the Mis- 
ane are found in our swamps along the canals of Ohio. 
e remark on the whole theory will close this examin- 
ation, ete too long. An hypothesis, or a theory, to be ac- 
cepta table to the mind, should account for all the appearances of 
the phenomenon which it proposes to explain; and its explana-— 
tions should be sustained by what we know of natural laws still 
in activity, and by action so evident that its effects cannot be 
denied. Neither of these conditions is fulfilled, I think, by the 
new theory. It takes into consideration a very ‘small part of the 
whole system of prairies, explaining neither the low lacustrine 
nor the fluvial prairies, neither those of the sea nor those of the 
mountains, etc. And it refuses to acknowledge an evident opera- 
tion constantly at work under our eyes, the result of a simple 
law of nature. 
Art. IV.—Preliminary notice of a small collection of Fossils found 
by Dr. Hays, on the west shore of Kennedy Channel, at the highest 
northern localities ever explored ; by F. B. MEEK 
Some time after Dr. Hays’ return from his Arctic expedition, 
he sent on to the Smithsonian Institution several boxes of min- 
eral and rock specimens collected by him while in the north, to 
be examined by Prof. Thomas Egleston. On gem these, 
Prof. Egleston noticed, amongst other specim mass of 
y limestone containing a few fossils, to hiss” he called the 
attention of the writer. Finding these to be of much interest, 
considering the distant northern locality from which they were 
obtained, the other specimens were then carefully examined, and 
fragments of a few other fossils found amongst them. When 
Dr. Hays subsequently visited Washington, he stated that the 
best specimens of fossils collected by him were then in the pos- 
session of a friend at Philadelphia, and that those we had seen 
were merely fragments that had been packed up with the Pd 
specimens. At the request of Dr. Hays, the writer 
Soho and report upon these fossils, so soon as the other gs] 
could be sent on from Philadelphia. After the lapse 0 of five 
ot six months, however, without their arrival, inquiries were 
" Fire times its ra beyond the prairies 
and daurort sa Gece of rut the ee whos the oe pose hg apse but 
of feeble growth. It is aie od engi te ground that the contest of Bee: 
gression and receding of the forest is in constant activity. ce. 
