128 W. Z r phatn — Fishing Bcmks. 



smaller ribs, Cardium Islandicum , and also various otlier less 

 common forms. These fragments came from various parts ol the 

 bank, including the central part, in depths varying from 35 to 70 

 fathoms, or more. 



From Banquereau, N. S., we received one specimen of similar 

 rock, containing abundant fragments of a large bivalve, and 

 about a dozen other species, among which are Fusus {Chrysodo- 

 mvs) decemcostatus, Latlrus albus Jeff. (?), unknown species of 

 Tnrritella, etc. From the Grand Bank two similar specimens 

 were received. One of these, from thirty-five fathoms, lat. 44° 

 30', long. 50° 15', contained numerous specimens of Gyprina 

 Islandica in good preservation. 



At present it appears probable that these fragments have been 

 detached from a very extensive submerged Tertiary formation, at 

 least several hundreds of miles in length, extending along the 

 outer banks, from off Newfoundland nearly to Cape Cod, and 

 perhaps constituting, in large part, the solid foundations of these 

 remarkable submarine elevations. 



The collections here described, belonging to the U. S. Fish 

 Commission, are under Professor Yen-ill's care in the Yale Uni- 

 versity museum ; but no further investigation of them has been 

 made. It has been my hope to secure another similarly large 

 collection and to give it attentive study, but other duties have 

 prevented this. Though the fishermen doubtless now draw up 

 on their lines as many of these specimens of the bed-rocks of 

 the banks as they did fifteen years ago, most of them are 

 immediately thrown away and fewer are brought ashore than 

 at that time when the work of the Fish Commission in Glou- 

 cester stimulated a worthy rivalry among the captains and 

 fishermen to bring in everything zoological or geological which 

 might possibly be of scientific interest for the Fish Commission. 

 Yisiting Gloucester during a few days in the summer of 1890, 

 my only opportunity for this collecting within recent years, I 

 was able to obtain only a few specimens of these fossiliferous 

 rocks, chiefly through donation by Dr. Thomas Conant and 

 Mr. Everett P. Wonson of that city, half of which I have 

 transmitted for these donors to the museum of this Society and 

 the other half to that of Dartmouth College. These specimens 

 were brought from St. George's Bank, and were mostly from 

 depths of about 40 fathoms. 



By date of September 29, 1890, Professor Yerrill wrote as 

 follows, in reply to my inquiries concerning the Fish Com- 

 mission collection of the fossiliferous bed-rocks of the Fishing 

 Banks: " I have found it useless to try to work up the fossils 

 till the recent shells from the same region are better known. 

 We have already added more than 200 species to the list of the 



