0. Meyer— Species in the Southern Old-tertiary. 69 



observations of my own, which make it very probable to me 

 that Vicksburg is the most recent bed. 



1. Profile of the bluff at Claiborne, Ala. — This famous bluff 

 has been described by Lea, Conrad, Lyell, Eale, Tuomey and 

 Mell,* and yet none of the given profiles represents the facts 

 correctly, at least at that point, where I observed. At a little 

 distance above the " upper landing" there is a vertical exposure 

 of the bluff of more than a hundred feet, showing the different 

 strata so distinctly that the whole profile might be photographed. 

 I was told by inhabitants of Claiborne that this exposure was 

 caused by a landslide some years ago.f By a simple and yet 

 reliable method (a string with a weight attached) I measured 

 the thickness of the strata on one vertical line and then 

 examined their characters, wherever they could be reached. 

 The water at the time of my visit was so high that I could not 

 determine the thickness of the stratum 5, and moreover could 

 not examine the stratum below it, which according to Conrad 

 and Tuomey is only visible at very low water and contains 

 fossils, the careful examination of which must be of importance. 



The profile at the mentioned point is the following: 



k. Diluvium ? red loam and pebbles. 



i. Mostly limestone. 33 feet. 



h. Glauconitic sands and clays. 11 feet. 



g. Gray sandy stratum with fossils. 6^ feet. 

 /. Red sand, fossils badly preserved, similar to e, but Scutella very 



common. 3 feet. 



{Highest Claibornian. ) 



Ferruginous sand with the Claibornian fossils. >- 17 feet. 

 Lowest Claibornian. ) 



d. Color a bluish gray. 26 feet. 



c. Mostly limestone with large ferruginous concretions. 8 feet. 

 b. Calcareous limestone with green sand, Ostrea, Pecten, Scalpellum, 



Scutella. 30 ? feet. 



In the lower limestone b I collected the following fossils : 

 Casts of shells ; teeth of sharks and rays ; an otolite of a fish : 

 Endopachys Macluri Lea sp., in bad condition ; a fragment of 

 a Scalaria ; a specimen of an Orbiloid ; a specimen of Veneri- 

 cardia parva Lea, showing more the typical form of the Cla- 

 bornian specimens than that of the var. Jacksonensis. More fre- 

 quent and in better condition are the following species : 



Ostrea selloeforrnis Conr., 0. Alabamiensis Lea, Pecten Deshaysi 

 Lea (includ. P. Lyelli Lea), P. sciniillatus Conr., "Scutella" Lyelli 

 Conr., Scalpellum Eocenense, n. sp. 



* "The Claiborne group and its remarkable fossils," by T. H. Mell, Jr. — Trans. 

 Am. Instit. of Min. Engin.. 1880. 



f Thus the Alabama River seems to be cutting its bed deeper. I observed a 

 similar undermining of its banks in Moody's Branch near Jackson, Miss., and 

 other creeks seem to do the same. This part of the American coast has risen 

 more or less gradually during all the later formations, and the mentioned phe- 

 nomenon may, perhaps, indicate that it is rising still at the present time. 



