58 General Notes, [January, 
case is not true here, because I frequently find a few continuous 
joints which do not show this coiled arrangement. It cannot be 
mere accident, since it is almost mathematically perfect, and any 
agency at work upon the animal after death, such as the rotary 
movement of water in a whirlpool, or the play of animals, might 
have twisted the crinoid about, but would not have formed a coil 
such as this. Hence, I conclude that it must have had the power 
of placing itself in this position at will, and that it was destroyed 
at a time when it had so disposed itself. The power of assuming 
the shape of a coil is quite a complex one, and necessitates a sys- 
tem of muscles capable of slight contraction along the whole ex- 
tent of the column, and is generally correlated with power 0 
motion in any direction, as in the bodies of snakes and the necks - 
of swans. 
friends on this subject.— Aug. F. Foerste, Dayton, Ohio. 
Tue Lour Fork BEDS ON THE GILA RIVER.—In his report of 
the Geology of New Mexico, fo the Secretary of the Interior, by 
Dr. F. V. Hayden, in 1869, this eminent geologist described the 
Santa Fé marls in their principal physical features. In 187 s 
my report to Capt. Geo. M. Wheeler, U. S. Engineers, I showed- 
that this formation is a member of the Loup Fork division of thè 
Miocene Tertiary, a conclusion clearly deducible from the remains 
of Vertebrata which it contains. An illustrated report on the z 
ter was published in the fourth volume of the Report of the U. > 
Geographical and Geological Survey W. of the rooth meridian, 
Capt G. M. Wheeler in charge (1877). ad 
__ Since that time the writer has made several visits to parts° 
New Mexico not previously explored, and I am able to show? a 
the Loup Fork formation has a much wider distribution 19 thar 
territory than has hitherto been supposed to be the case. |, J 
In descending the Rio Grande, beds appear on the west side o 
the river, which strongly resemble those of Santa Fé. They gi 
tend along the eastern base of the Magdalena mountains, and # 
far south as Socorro, in considerable extent and thickness. South 
mountains is composed of beds of this age where cut by the gf” 
of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé R. R. west of Hatch e 
tion. West of the Mimbres mountains the valley of the — 
e same name is filled with débris of the bed of eruptive = 
