James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1James, Edwin
History
James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1
James, Edwin
Indians of North America; Rocky Mountains; United States -- Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
15. Many of these shells exhibit the most unequivocal
evidences of having been in a plastic state, at some period or
other, since their deposition in their present situations. The
fine striæ of a _productus lineolatus_, are so interlaced on
the middle of a valve of one of our specimens, as at once to
convince every observer of the shell having been thus
partially dissolved, and when in this state to have been
gently rubbed by some other body, in two directions proceeding
obliquely to the same point, so as to throw the striæ in that
part entirely out of their proper longitudinal direction. It
is very common to find shells unnaturally flattened, or
compressed in various ways and degrees, often without any
fracture in the shell or cast; a circumstance which certainly
could never happen to the shell, unless it was in a plastic
state, or in a state of partial solution.
16. A specimen of carbonate of lime, on its surface a mass of
sub-parallel tubes, connected by short lateral processes. The
whole much resembles, and is probably congeneric with the
erismatholithus tubiporites (_catenatus_) of Martin's Petrif.
Derbi. t. 42. fig. 2., but the connecting processes of the
tubes are much shorter than they are represented in that
figure; but it corresponds much more exactly with the
tubiporite, figured by Parkinson in his Organic Remains, vol.
2. pl. 1. f. 1., and may with great propriety form a new
genus, the type of which will be the tubipora strues of Lin.
The genus is probably allied to favosites and tubipora.
17. _Trilobus._--The abdomen of a species of this singular
genus frequently occurs in the sandstone of the Missouri; near
Engineer Cantonment they were very common. The largest was
rather more than one inch long, by about one and three-tenths
inches in breadth at base; but the more general length is
about three-fourths of an inch. The tergum or intermediate
lobe is narrow, being not more than two-thirds of the width of
the flanks, and much more convex than those parts.
But a single specimen occurred, which we can, without any
doubt, consider as the thorax of a trilobus; but whether or
not it appertains to the same species with the above, or to
some other of which we have no other fragment, we are at a
loss to determine. Like the above-mentioned abdomen, it is
distinct from any that we have seen figures of. It is of a
narrow lunate form, highly convex, the disk destitute of
sculpture, and the eyes prominent.
18. Many imperfect casts of two different kinds of bivalve
shells occur near Engineer Cantonment, of which one may
possibly have been a _cardita_.
19. Tooth of a squalus, which seems to approach nearest to
those of _Sq. maximus_, by its compressed conic form.
Greatest length 2-1/10 inches.
Thickness more than 2/5 of an inch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account