I FIFTH REPORT 
|fe. V Of the Colorado giologie&l 
Association. 
EDITED BY THE SECRETARY. 
NEW MEMBERS. 
(25.) W. S. Foster, Salida, Colo. 
(26.) Dr. Geo. H. Horn, Philadel- 
phia, Pennsylvania. 
THE FOSSILS OF HUERFANO COUNTY. 
In 1887, whiie strolling over gome 
of the lower foot-hills ot the Green- 1 
horn Range in Huerfano county, I 
came upon a small patch of Sedimen- 
tary Formation which upon examina 
tion proved to*be highly fossil iferous, 
and in a few hours I secured a large 
quantity of well preserved fossil uni- 
valve shells of the family Aviculidae, 
also a number of most beautifully 
preserved teeth, so perfect that the 
enamel glistened as if the original 
owner and they had but yesterday 
parted company. There also was 
still not only the enamel but th£ deli- 
cate serrations still standing out on 
. each of some ot the teeth like the lit- 
tle sharp points of a very fine toothed 
saw. Then there were also with these 
cutting rasping teeth the molars all 
perfect as the day when with surgical 
dexterity they probed and rasped the 
fleshy parts of creatures that fell to 
t them as fit and proper subjects of vi- 
visection. dome ofithese teeth were 
small, others a little over an inch 
in length; some of them were lay- 
ing on the ground exposed, others 
were to be chiseled out of the solid 
rock, which consisted of an impure 
limestone containing a large quantity 
of siliceous matter. There were along 
with these teeth scattered fragments 
of the beautiful Ammonite shell, 
whose graceful whorls have often been 
In other parts of the world amongst 
the uninformed regarded as certain 
confirmatory evidence that St. Pat- 
rick did really destroy the snakes of 
Hibernia — and behold these are they 
now changed to stone. 
Be that as it may, here in the beau- 
tiful low lands of the Greenhorn range 
may be found the self-same so-called 
petrified snakes, not however in so 
good a state of preservation as I have 
seen them elsewhere. I need scarcely 
sav that these Ammonite shells are 
simply the preserved inhabitants of an 
ancient sea. They belong to the 
Nautilus family (Cephalopoda) of the 
present day, but they themselves have 
been blotted out of natures catalogue 
of the living ages and ages ago. 
There is also well preserved the beau- 
tiful Pecten shells (family Pectinidae,) 
whose delicate lines of ornamentation 
are still retained; and more which 
are much less familiar than they, and 
v\ho seem strangers even to those who 
have made the science of Conchology 
