REVIEW OF PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS. 319 



beds, together with some of their fossils, are described, but no evidence 

 is adduced that the author recognized their taxonomic position. 



James Pierce,* in a " Notice of the Alluvial District of New Jersey," 

 published a few years subsequently, describes the marl deposits of Mon- 

 mouth county in that state. 



Professor John Finch,f of England, was the first to recognize, when 

 visiting this country in 1824, that the Coastal Plain deposits represented 

 more than a single horizon. His contribution on this subject contained 

 the first attempt at a correlation of the several deposits of the Coastal 

 plain with other areas, and although thus earry in the study of the sub- 

 ject minute comparisons, which the facts did not warrant, were made, 

 yet the knowledge of Atlantic Coastal Plain stratigraphy was materially 

 advanced. In this article he says : 



" I wish to suggest that what is termed the alluvial formation in the geological 

 maps of Messrs Maclure and Cleveland is identical and contemporaneous with the 

 newer Secondary and Tertiary formations of France, England, Spain, Germany, 

 Italy, Hungary, Poland, Iceland, Egypt, and Hindostan." 



During the year 1825 Jer. Van Rensselaer I delivered a course of lec- 

 tures in the New York Atheneum, on geology, that were subsequently 

 published in book form. The author adopted the classification proposed 

 by Finch, although he confined his description to the northern repre- 

 sentatives of the Cretaceous-Tertiary series. 



The credit for the first definite recognition of the Cretaceous deposits 

 of the Atlantic Coastal plain must be ascribed to Professor Lardner 

 Vanuxem. The results of his observations were placed in the hands 

 of his friend, Dr S. G. Morton,§ for publication in the Journal of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. His views were again 

 stated under his own signature in the American Journal of Science,|| in 

 which reference is made to the earlier publication. 



In the years immediately succeeding the publication of Professor 

 Vanuxem's articles several contributions were made by Dr S. G. Morton, 

 both in the Journal of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences 

 and the American Journal of Science, upon the organic remains of the 

 Cretaceous deposits, and these were finally embodied in 1834 in an im- 

 portant work entitled " Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Creta- 

 ceous Group of the United States."^" 



*Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 6, 1823, pp. 237-242. 



■fAmer. Jour. Sci., vol. 7, 1824, pp. 31-43. 



X Lectures on Geology, 1825, 8vo, 358 pp. 



§ Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 6, 1829, pp. 59-71. 



|| Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 16, 1829, pp. 254-256. 



Ti Philadelphia, 1834, 8vo, pp. — , plates. 



