﻿256 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF TERTIARY FOSSILS 

 IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI. 



By T. H. Aldrich. 



Such was the abundance of life in the Southern old Tertiary that one 

 can hardly spend a day collecting in that region without finding new 

 forms, and new localites for old ones, hitherto unsuspected. The differ- 

 ent groups of the Tertiary series have many species in common, and their 

 position must be determined from the general fauna found in each, and 

 the actual superposition rather than from any especial forms, although they 

 no doubt occur. Until the fauna of each division is much more 

 thoroughly investigated than at present, it will be almost impossible to say 

 what species are guides or "finger-posts" to the groups in question. 

 Prof. E. W. Hilgard* states that nowhere has he been able to find 

 Orbitoides associated with the bones of the Zeuglodon, or any of the charac- 

 teristic fossils of his Jackson Group, and this statement is repeated by 

 Heilprin (United States Tertiary Geology, p. 34 ); but in some material 

 lately collected for me at Jackson, on Dry or Town Creek, from the beds, 

 four and five of Prof. Hilgard's section (No. 27)+ I find portions of Orbi- 

 toides supera Con. and Orbitoides Maniclli Con. associated with a few Nuw- 

 mulites. These beds immediately underlie the strata in which occur the 

 Zeuglodon bones. 



The specimens are found with the well-known "Jackson" fossils in 

 their very "matrix," and at the typical locality for the Jackson Group. 

 Dr. Otto Meyerl mentions finding an Orbitoid in the Claiborne Group 

 (his bed ll b"). 



We thus have evidence of the occurence of Orbitoides in the Clai- 

 borne, Jackson and Vicksburg Groups, giving a far larger range than was 

 supposed, and destroying the value of Orbitoides as an exclusively Oligocene 

 " Leit fossil" in the Tertiary of the South. 



One specimen of the Nummuliie found with the above Orbitoid has a 

 strong resemblance to N. wilcoxi, of Heilprin, recently described from 

 Florida. 



Foraminifera are very abundant at the Vicksburg outcrop near Byram 

 Station, Miss., associated with Orbitoides. A form in a siliceous lime- 

 stone, from just beneath the calcareous sand bed of the Claiborne Group, 



*On the Tertiary Formations of Mississippi and Alabama, A. J. C, V. 43, p. 30. 1867. 

 t Ag. and Geol. of Miss., p. 131. i860. 



JGeneal. and Age of the Species in the Southern Old Tertiary, A. J. S., Vol. 30, 1885. 



