198 General Notes. | [ March, 
writes to Mr. Lesquereux to this effect in regard to the fossil 
plants of the Laramie gro 
“I do not ‘cease reviewing and s tudying your last magnificent 
publications which have given to phytopaleontology an immense 
forward impetus. ‘Par lesquelles vous avez faite faire un pas im- 
mense a la paleophytologie.’ You ask me to express my opinion 
on the age of your flora of the lignitic. It seems to me impossi- 
ble that one can see in it anything else than a tertiary flora, unless 
one wishes to reverse all the data acquired by science until now. 
I consider this flora just as you do, as truly (franchement) eocene, 
not even pliocene, perhaps agate SET wit t. Bolca or 
eocene, possibly a little more recent. It is very possible that in 
marine strata, intermediate to the land or lignitic deposits, one 
may find remains of cretaceous animals. It has been observed 
already many times that the modification to which the inhabitants 
of the land have been subjected, do not accord with those exhib- 
ited by the inhabitants of the sea. These are very often back- 
ward in their development, and this is quite natural from Pi 
slower action of the climate or climatic influence upon the 
habitants of the sea than upon those of the land. The facies ‘of 
your lignitic vegetation is tertiary ; it is impossible to change that. 
Messrs. the geologists have to decide as they may find proper.” 
ON THE OCCURRENCE OF A SOLID HYDROCARBON IN THE 
Eruptive Rocks or New Jersey.—Mr. I. C. Russell states that 
associated with the sheet of trap rock known as the First Newark 
Mountain, which traverses the central portion of the Triassic 
formation of New Jersey, there occurs near Plainfield, at an 
abandoned copper mine on the western slope of the mountain— 
the upper surface of the trap sheet—an amygdaloid trap passing 
into a metamorphosed shale. In this region it is frequently 
impossible to distinguish in small exposures the genuine trap 
from the metamorphosed shales that rest in contact with it. 
Many of the cavities in the amygdaloidal rock are filled with a 
bois jet black carbonaceous mineral resembling very closely 
e albertite of New Brunswick. ese cavities are frequently 
ea in shape having a length of three or four inches and 
usually a diameter of about a quarter of an inch. Sometimes 
these tubes were lined throughout by infiltration, with a coating 
of quartz or calcite a line or two in thickness, before the carbon- 
aceous material was introduced. Above the amygdaloid is found 
a metamorphosed shale which still retains its bedded structure, 
and in places presents something of the usual reddish color of the 
akp ea shales. This altered rock is traversed in various direc- 
tions by seams and fissures, which are frequently filled with the 
same albertite-like mineral. Resting upon these metamorphosed 
beds occur slates, shales and sandstones, which eran fossil 
fishes and a considerable abundance of obscure vegetable remains. 
It seems evident that these organic bodies furnished ap their 
