When I reached the spot it was just in 
the condition I had left it. There could 
be no doubt of the fact that the button 
had been picked out of the excavation 
within a few inches of the original sur- 
face of the ground and that it had lain 
in close proximity to the human bones 
we had discovered. But nosv on a closer 
examination I discovered that immedi- 
ately around the indentation where the 
button had reposed the earth was a 
shade darker than that of the general 
face of the excavation and I commenced 
to dig into it to account for this fact. I 
very soon discovered that I was follow- 
ing a streak of dark earth that extended 
nearly at right angles to the trench, in a 
direction that would bring nie out about 
midway »p the western side of the 
mound. Therefore I went there, and 
investigation showed a cup-shaped de- 
pression which, as a few strokes of the 
spade determined, was unmistakably the 
entrance to the burrow of some animali 
now long disused and filled with dust 
and the wa.sh of rains. To make assur- 
ance doubly sure I excavated the burrow 
from top to bottom and found that it led 
directly to the resting place of Uncle 
Sam's button. 
It was now easy to account for the 
presence of the button in the mound. 
Laying aside the possibility that the ani- 
mal which once owned the burrow had 
made his nest out of a fragment of a cast 
off garment, it is only necessarj^ to recall 
the disposition, so common in children, 
to take articles, such as pebbles, bullets, 
buttons, etc., into holes and secret 
places, to relieve the circumstance of all 
elements of mystery and marvel. The 
spot had always been a favorite haunt of 
children of the neighboihood and on 
some occasion, while the burro«' was yet 
open, tlie button had been accidentally 
or designedly dropped into it from the 
Angers of some playful child and had 
rolled to the bottom. Thus it was that 
this insignia of modern warfare was 
found nestling among the bones of an 
old warrior who had passed to the hap- 
py hunting grounds centuries, perhaps, 
befoie Uncle Sam was born. 
The moral of this incident is easily 
read. Caution is good ; conservatism is 
good; but caution and conservatism may 
l)e (juite as apt to be led astray by ap- 
pearances as radicalism and enthusiasm. 
Warrkn Watson. 
The announcement of The Youths' 
Gompanion for 1801 has been received. 
It is a tasty little souvenir. The list of 
able writers for the ensuing year bids 
fair to make it more fascinating than 
ever to its nearly 500,000 subscribers. 
Among the able contributoi s to this pop- 
ular weekly will be Lord Coleridge, 
Chief Justice of Englan:!, Jules Verne. 
The Marquis of Lorne, and Princess 
Louise, Prof. C. A. Young, of Princeton 
University, and Lieut. J. E. Pillsbury of 
the United States Navy. 
For The Naturalist. 
THE BURLINGTON GROUP OF 
ROCKS. 
R. R. Rowley, Curryville, Mo. 
The Lower Burlington Limestone at 
Louisiana directly overlies the Vermic- 
ular Sandstone, and caps most of the 
hills in the eastern part of Pike County- 
It consists of white and brown strata of 
very hard limestone, the layers varying 
from throe feet near the base, to a few 
inches in thickness above. The stone is 
of an excellent quality, and the uses to 
which it is put are many and various. 
The H. L. Hart Quarry Co., of Louisi- 
ana, is one of Pike County's most sub- 
stantial enterprises, and beautiful and 
valuable stone is shipped to points in 
Io^va, 111., and other Mississippi Valley 
States. The Burlington Limestone is 
crowded with the remains of Crinoidae, 
niostlj' stems and detached plates. 
Other fossils are less numerous, but all 
the branches of the animal king- 
dom, from the Protozoan to the Verte- 
brate are represented. Tlie stratum at the 
base of this limestone, for convenience, 
may be called the Batocrhuix calvini hor- 
izon and contains a very interesting 
fauna, of which jS. ff^ and two or 
three kindred species are the most char- 
acteristic fossil. Besides the Batocrinoids 
there is a very gibbous Spirifera close 
to S. marionensis but probably distinct, 
an Athyris, Orthis swaU.ovi, Strophumriia 
rhomboidalis, a Productus. Syringothyris 
hannihalensis s (?) ZAtphre.ntis calceola, 
two other Cyathophylloids. Leptoioora{'i) 
sp ? Granatocriuus melo,a.]a.vgeDoryci'inns, 
an Actinocrinus like A. pfohoscidtalig, an 
Agaricocrinus (new species), a large 
Bhodocrinus probably B. lohitii, Bato- 
crinus, Ichthyocrinus sp?, Poterio- 
crtnus meekianus 'i two or three species 
oi. Plat ycr inns and one Gasteropod mol- 
lusk(Pto)/c«-as sp?). 
This is a mixed Burlington andKin- 
derhook fauna, but the Crinoidal 
remains refer the stratum to the 
former groiq) of rocks. 
Above the Batocriims caloi- 
ni bed are two or thiee layers 
containing an abundance of Mollus- 
can remains, and I .shall designate this 
horizon as the Spirifera grimesi division. 
The fauna emhv^ces Zaphrentis calceola 
two or three other new si^ecies of Zaph- 
rentis, Z.elliptica, a Cyathaxonia{??) sp? 
a number of undetermined Bryosoa. Or- 
this sicalluri, Orthis sp? Strophomena 
rhomboidalis, Terebrutulu Imrlingtoiiensis 
T. rowleyi^Chonetes logani, Bhynchonella, 
missouriensis, B. ringeus, B. boonensis, 
Spirijera peculiarsis(?), S. solidirostris 
Athyris incrassata several species of 
Productus, Betzia, Playceras, Euompha- 
lus latus , Loxonemg,, Pleurotomaria, Go- 
niatites, Nautilus, Phillips la (three spe- 
cies"), Conularia, Crania, Lingulu, and a 
few fl.sh teeth also found in the B. calvi- 
ni bed. 1 have not attempted to give a 
list of tlie fossils of this middle horizon, 
mentioning only the most common forms 
The sutures separatmg the layers are us- 
ually covei'ed with broken valves of 
Spirifera grimesi. 
Of Crinoids and Blastoids, the most 
common species are Batocrinus 
longirostris, Dorycrinus unicornis, 
D. subaculeatus , Eretmocrinus 'coronatus, 
Actinocrinus clarus, Gra7iatocrinus{2 or 
3 species), a small Cadaster, and a little 
Codonites, not C. gracilis. 
The rest of the Lower Burlington 
Limestone I shall call from its 
most characteristic fossil the 
Granatocrinus melo horizon. These are 
of course, the upper layers of the series 
which are largely made up of Crinoidal 
remains. The genera represented are Ac- 
inocrimts, Batocrinus, Dorycrinus, Eret- 
mocrinus, Cyatliocrinus, Calceocrinus, 
Synhathocrinus, Bhodocrinus, Meyistocri- 
nus, Agaricocrinus, Amphoracrinus.Plat- 
ycrinus, Dichocrinus, Granatocrinus, Co- 
donites slelliformis. Cadaster and Troos- 
tocrinus. The Lower Burlington Lime- 
stone contains more or less chert in 
rounded masses of all sizes from a pound 
in weight to a hundred lbs. These nod- 
ules of chert are to be found all through 
the beds, but are most abundant near the 
sutui'es and sometimes appear as a thin 
stratification. The outside of some of 
these nodules is often soft, and in wea- 
thering, leaves most perfect and beauti- 
ful snow white fossils, priceless treas- 
ures for the cabinet. In the harder cen- 
ters of the flints"; magnificent natural 
casts are occasionally found, of Gas- 
teropods, Brachiopods and Crinoids, 
some of them thickly set with small trans- 
parent quartz crystals which reflect the 
light from their facets like so many dia- 
monds. An occasional specimen of Spiri- 
fer or Athyris is found so perfectly pre- 
served, that by the removal of one valve 
the internal spiral coils appear like 
delicate, beautiful threads of silica. 
The Upper Burlington Series at Lou- 
isiana is represented by loose cherts scat- 
tered over the hill tops and along the 
streams. Near Curryville, there are a few 
feet of hard white and brown limestone, 
with heavy layers of chert, but nowhere 
in the county is there any great thick- 
ness of this rock. At an outcrop of the 
limestone in Spencer Creek 1 have found 
a beautiful specimen of Zeacrinus like 
troostanus, ScMzoblastxis sayi,Grana,tocri- 
nus norwoodi var fimbriatus, Batocrinus 
pyri/ormis, B. christyi, B. aequibrachia- 
tus. Agaricocrinus probably americans, 
Dorycrinus intermedius( ?) Teleiocrinus sp 
an Actinocrinus, a Calceocrinus etc. The 
cherts yield an abundance of most ex- 
cellent natural casts of Crinoids and 
Blastoids together with a few Brachio- 
pods, Gastropods and Corals. Among the 
most commmon species of these casts are 
Strotocrinus umbrosus,S. sub-umbrosus, S. 
glyptus,^. regalis, Physetocrinus ventrico- 
sus, Agaricocrinus bellitrenia, Dorycrinus 
missouriensis, D, cornigerus, Batocrinus 
pyriformis, B. christyi, B.aequibrachiatus, 
Dichocrinus lineatus, Platycrim(s{hn]t a 
