Description of Vertebrate Remains, chiefly from the Phosphate Beds of South Carolina. 



By Prof. Joseph Leidy. 



During the past two years the leisure of the writer of the present communica- 

 tion had become so much occupied in another field of investigation that until a 

 few weeks ago he had no idea of doing anything again so soon in the way of 

 palffiontological research. The recent great International Exhibition, established 

 in commemoration of the centennial existence of the United States, with a profusion 

 of other matters of interest, has brought to his notice, in the agricultural depart- 

 ment of the government building, and in various collections of manufacturing 

 companies of fertilizers, many fossils obtained from the so-called Ashley Phosphate 

 Beds of South Carolina. Among the fossils there are a number of sufficient 

 importance to command attention while the opportunity exists of examining 

 them, for in most cases they are likely to be lost to the inspection of students 

 after the great exhibition closes.* 



Want of sufficient time and the means of making the requisite comparisons 

 have prevented the determination and description of the greater number of the 

 fossils, especially of the numerous Cetacean vertebrae, and the teeth of Sharks, 

 wonderful for their multitude and variety as some of them are for their size. So 

 much uncertainty and confusion prevail in the reference of teeth of extinct Sharks 

 to genera and species, that until some one who has the opportunity will afford us 

 the means of making comparisons by publishing good figures of the entire series, in 

 all its varieties, of the dentition of the living Sharks, we cannot hope to give a 

 satisfactory account of the fossil teeth. 



The Ashley Phosphate Beds, as they are commonly called, of South Carolina, 

 now extensively explored for their stores of fertilizing materials, are composed of 

 sands and clays, intermingled with irregular porous masses of more coherent rock 

 rich in calcium phosphate, together with many organic remains. These beds, the 

 economical importance of which was fully made known in 1868 by Prof Francis 

 S. Holmes and Dr. N. A. Pratt, of Charleston, occupy a large extent of country in 

 the southern part of South Carolina, on the Wando, Cooper, Ashley, Stono, Edisto, 



* The finder and unscientific owner of fossils, ignorant of their real importance, often retain them as curi- 

 osities, with exaggerated notions of their pecuniary value, and no argument is sufficient to induce them to part 

 with the specimens or place them where they may be accessible to the student. 



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