Foraminiferous Deposits of the United States.--Dr. Bailey has made us familiar with the foraminiferous rocks of North America. The various memoirs on this class of fossil animalculites, and on the diatomaceæ (_ante_, p. 93), published in the American Journal of Science, and in the Smithsonian Transactions, attest the acumen, and unwearied spirit of research, of this able observer. Not only from the United States, but from numerous localities in Asia and Arabia, Dr. Bailey has transmitted me specimens of limestones containing foraminifera, chiefly of the genera Rotalia and Textularia.[333] [333] From Beyrout, Damascus, the Mount of Olives, Anti-Libanus. In the calcareous marls of the Upper Missouri river, extending nearly to the Rocky Mountains, similar fossils are met with. In the interior of Florida, the white orbitoidal limestone is traversed by flint; and the calcareous and siliceous masses are full of microscopic foraminifera.[334] [334] Smithsonian Contributions, vol. ii. p. 161. [Sidenote: FORAMINIFERA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMATIONS.] Foraminifera of the Carboniferous Formations.--In the carboniferous limestones of England, the late Mr. Bowman, Prof. Tennant, and Mr. Darker, detected shells of foraminifera, apparently of the genus Fusulina.[335] Prof. Phillips mentions the occurrence of nautiloid foraminifera in the palæozoic limestones of Carrington Park, South Devon, and Yorkshire.[336] [335] Edinburgh New Phil. Journal, vol. xxx. p. 44. [336] Proceedings of the Polytechnic Society of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1845. Dr. Dale Owen is said to have obtained "well characterized polythalamia from the oolitic portion of the carboniferous (Pentremitic, _ante_, p. 298,) limestone of Indiana."[337] And M. de Verneuil discovered a species of Fusulina, in the Millstone-grit of the coal formation of the Ohio. [337] American Journal of Science, vol. xlvi. note to p. 311. But the most remarkable deposits of foraminifera in the palæozoic rocks, are those of Russia, described by Sir Roderick Murchison.[338] The upper beds of the Mountain limestone in the Lower Volga, consist of laminated calcareous shales, composed of an aggregation of shells of Fusulinæ. Bands of limestone, through a vertical extent of two hundred feet, are loaded with Fusulinæ; layers from five inches to five feet in thickness, consist of a pure white Fusulina limestone; the foraminifera are all of one species, the _Fusulina cylindrica_. [338] Geology of Russia in Europe, vol. i. p. 86. pl. i. fig. 1.