MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 185 



about fifteen feet thick. Bluish and greenish tinted bands of clay 

 relieve somewhat the somber aspect of this formation, and at about 

 its middle portion it carries a bed of peat. But its most striking fea- 

 ture is the presence of huge fossil cypress knees and stumps which are 

 imbedded in its lower portion. These stumps vary in diameter from 

 two to over ten feet, and after the removal of the surrounding clay, 

 stand out prominently in the position in which they must have grown. 

 Mr. A. Bibbins, to whom the author is indebted for notes on these 

 deposits, has counted thirty-two of these stumps which were visible 

 at one time, and also reports finding worm-eaten beechnuts intimately 

 associated with cypress cones near the base of the formation. Sands 

 and gravels of the Talbot formation overlie the whole. Immediately 

 south of this outcrop the dark-colored clays are temporarily replaced 

 by the Baritan formation, but they appear again a little further down 

 the shore, and afford a good and almost unbroken exposure for about 

 a mile. The thickness of the clay in this locality is at first about ten 

 or twelve feet, but it gradually becomes thinner southward and finally 

 disappears altogether. Casts of Unio shells and not vegetable re- 

 mains, are its predominant fossils, while, like the beds containing the 

 cypress swamp, it overlies the Baritan formation unconformably, 

 and is itself abruptly buried beneath Talbot sands and gravel. 



Another locality of these deposits is on the Bay shore, about a 

 mile northeast of Drum Point. Here, at the base of a cliff about 

 thirty feet high, is a two-foot bed of dark, chocolate-colored clay carry- 

 ing gnarled and twisted sticks protruding in every direction from 

 the material in which they are imbedded. Above this occurs a thin 

 seam of lignite one and a half feet thick, which in turn is overlain 

 with about ixve feet of slate-colored clay. At this point the continuity 

 of the deposit is interrupted by a series of sands, clays and gravels 

 belonging to the Talbot formation, which extend upward to the top of 

 the cliff. Although the base of this lignitic clay series is buried be- 

 neath beach sands, field relations lead to the conclusion that the de- 

 posit is very much younger than the Miocene clays on which it rests 

 unconformably. A similar section is to be seen on the Patuxent 

 river, about a mile below Sollers Landing. Large stumps here pro- 



