HISTORY OF RESEARCH. xi 



j^_^jj During the same year Hall, while describing- a new 



HaU, species — Gr. clintonensis — notes the fact that the shales in 



' Greolof^ical Report of which Graptolites occur are black, as if from the carbo- 



the 4th District of naceous matter derived from the fossils. This, he points out, 



^^ ^^ ^' would seem to argue against placing these bodies among the 



calcareous Polyparia, but he does not suggest their alliance with any other group 



of the animal kingdom. 



1844,. In his ' Taconic System ' Emmons gives figures of certain 



Emmons, fossils which he names Fncoides simplex from the roofing 



' The Taconic System.' gjate of Hoosic, New York. These fossils, he says, " have 

 much the appearance of the Graptolites of the Utica slates, but which I am now 

 satisfied are marine vegetables." There can be but little doubt, however, that 

 Emmons' fossils are really Graptolites of the type of DqilograjJtus foliaceus of 

 Murchison ; but, owing to the cleavage that the containing rock has undergone, 

 the fossils present very different appearances according to their position on the 

 slab. 



184<^_4 ^^^^ general view held by Americans about this time as to 



Mather ^^^^ vegetable nature of the Graptolites was also endorsed by 



'Geological Report of Mather in his ' Geological Report ' in 1843. Mather mentions 



the 1st and 2nd Dis- that there are at least five species of these plants (Graptolites) 



tricts of New Yor]c,' j^^ ^j^g Utica slates, and that they also occur in the Hudson 



^ ■ '■ River group, but he does not describe them. He copies 



Vanuxem's figures of Gr. dentatns. 



Owen, however, in a review of Vanuxem's work {op. cif. 



1844. supra, 1812), points out the differences between the views of 

 ^'^^"^' Vanuxem and those of the European geologists as to the 



eview o le ew ^^QQioo-ical affinities of the Graptolites, and seems himself to 

 York Geological '^ ^ 



Reports," 'Amer. incline to those of the latter. He suggests that the carbona- 



Journal,' vol. xlvii. ceous matter almost invariably found in connection with the 



Graptolites " may have resulted from the pecviliar conditions 



and circumstances attending their deposition;" and he asks, "might not, by the 



action of some chemical affinity, the less stable elements of the Polyparia have been 



removed and the carbon alone left?" 



1845. In 1845 Boubee recorded in his paper " Sur les Graptolites 

 T, 1, Bouh^, jgg Pvrenees " the occurrence of GraptolitJms Sagittarius in 



'Bull, de la Soc. Geol. ^ j. ^ 



de France,' ser. 2, t. ii. the Silurian beds of the Pyrenees. 



Murchison, de Verneuil, and Keyserling, in their 'Geology of Russia and the 

 Ural Mountains' (vol. ii), note the occurrence of Gh-apto- 

 MurcMson, de Verneuil, Uthus Sagittarius and Gr. distieltns in the Silurian beds of 

 and Keyserling. ^^^^^i^. 



In the year 184G Geinitz, in a second paper on Graptolites, suggested the first 



