120 



UNITED STATES. 



Calcareous incrustations, and petrifactions, shells 

 and dilTerent animal relicks, are likewise found in the 

 neighbourhood of Cincinnati, in Mill-creek. They 

 have been discovered on digging wells between Cin* 

 cinnati, and Lexington ; and in the bottoms of most 

 of the creeks running through that country for twenty 

 or thirty miles on each side. 



During the spring of 1802, a gentleman in the 

 neighbourhood of Williamsburg, in digging a ditclx 

 on his farm, discovered, about four or five feet below 

 the surface of the earth, a considerable portion of 

 the skeleton of a whale. Fragments of the ribs and 

 other parts of the body were found ; and all the ver- 

 tebra regularly arranged, and very little impaired 

 as to their figure. The spot on which this skeleton 

 v/as found lies about two miles from the nearest 

 sliore of James river, and fifty or sixty from the At« 

 lantic ocean. The whole of the circumstances led 

 strongly to the belief, that this animal had died in his 

 native element, and had afterwards been buried iu 

 the sand at its bottom. f 



In Richmond, glossopetrjc, or teeth of sharks, 

 have been found, several times, in digging wells, at 



relatesj) has probably been over/lowed by the waters above being 

 dammed up by the hills and mountains below ; and this for a consider- 

 able length of time. The water being in part saturated with the lime 

 and salt which are found there, would afford support and nourishment 

 to testaceous animals similar to those of the ocean. The salt licfcs 

 are near great bodies of lime-stone. This would make cne suppose the- 

 bottom of the ocean to abotind with regular layers of lime-stone and 

 salt rocks : otherwise how would shell fish multiply in such numbers, 

 if the water of the sea was not pretty well saturated ^'ith Y^me s« 

 well as salt? 



t Med. Repos, Hexadc ^d, vol, 2ii*. 



