i;v a. mi:ad EDWARDS. 11 



makes up the major part of the rocks of the coast range of 

 mountains, and lias been named the bituminous shales. It was 

 first detected at Monterey, and La known to miorosoopists in 

 England as "Monterey stone,' 1 but it has since been traced 

 and brought from various points. Santa Cruz, San Pedro and 

 San Diego have yielded excellent specimens, containing many 

 beautiful forms of diatomacera. It is usually light fawn-col- 

 ored, and distinctly stratified. Large fossil shells are found in 

 it; and associated with and in, if not derived from it, is the 

 bitumen of California. At Baldjik, near Varna in Bulgaria, on 

 the Black Sea, is a stratum of stony character, having shells 

 and bones dispersed through it. The diatomacese found in it 

 are apparently of brackish-water origin, and this is the only 

 stratum of this kind that is known. But very little of this 

 material has found its way into the hands of naturalists. On 

 the island of Jutland, in Denmark, is found a polishing slate 

 which is rich in diatomaceous forms not found anywhere i 

 This, also, is rare among naturalists, and a good supply of it is 

 very desirable. At Oran, in Algeria, Africa, and at £3gina and 

 Caltanisetta, in Greece, are deposits containing the remains of 

 diatoniacerc, intermixed with polycystina and foraminifera, and 

 referred to the Cretaceous. In the island of Barbadoes 

 so-called marls made up of diatomaoese and polycystina, the 

 latter in great numbers and very beautiful. In the island of 

 Trinidad, at South Naparima, a similar stratum has lately been 

 discovered, which " is considered as connected with the new 

 red sandstone; adjoining to which is the sandstone, probably 

 of the same description, in which the Pitch Lake is situ- 

 ated." At Moron, in Spain, has been found a similar deposit 

 of marine diatomacese; and still another was discovered by Dr. 



C. F. Winslow, at a point about seventy miles south of the 



town of Payta, in Peru, and about fifteen miles from the Pacific 

 Ocean. Eere is a plain separated from the sea by a rai 



hills several hundred feet high. Within the plain is a de- 



preesion with nearly perpendicular walls two hundred feet high, 



the bottom of which depression is at about the level of the sea — 

 perhaps a little lower. The surface of the Boil thereabout i> 



covered with salt. For fifteen feet down there is a deposit 

 taining recent shells, the bones <»i oetacea, and pebbles; then. 



