Regular Meeting, December 3d, 1866.
President in the chair.
Nineteen members present.
Donations to the Library:
Sechster Bericht des Offenbacher Vereins für Naturkunde, 8vo., 1865. Jahrbuch der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt, xvi Band, No. 1., 8vo., Wien, 1866. Monatsbericht der königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Jan.-Mai, 1866, 5 parts, 8vo., Berlin, 1866. Acta Universitatis Lundensis, 1864, 2 parts, 4to., Lund. 1864-5. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 1, Part 1, 8vo., New Haven, 1866. Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 4to., Vol. 1, Part 1, Boston, 1866. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Nos. 2 and 3, 1866, 8vo., Phil., 1866. Proceedings of the Essex Institute, vol. 5, No. 1, 8vo., Salem, 1866. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 10, Sheets 4-23, 8vo., Boston, 1866. Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, vol. 8, Nos. 6-12, 8vo., New York, 1865-6. Proceedings of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, vol. 1, Sheets 1-3, 8vo., Chicago, 1866. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 7, 8vo., Boston, 1865-6. All the above were presented by the societies or authors named; and the foreign publications were received through the Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. Stearns exhibited specimens of Petricola carditoides and Pholadidea ovoidea, in unusually hard serpentine, collected by himself at Fort Point, San Francisco.
Professor Whitney read some extracts from letters just received from Mr. Rémond, giving an account of his geological explorations in Peru and Chile. Mr. Rémond has obtained a suite of plants from the coal-bearing formation of Northern Chile, sufficient in number to fix its age as Triassic. Two species, one a Pecopteris, the other a Pterophyllum, are apparently identical with those found with the coal near Los Bronces, in Sonora, Mexico, by Mr. Rémond. Above the coal-bearing conglomerates and sandstones, there are stratified porphyries, and above these, fossiliferous limestones of Liassic age. The fossils in this last mentioned formation are, in general, similar to those found by Domeyko and Darwin, at Las Juntas and Tres Cruces; but Mr. Rémond obtained several new species. He also collected a large number of species in the Tertiaries of Coquimbo and Caldera. Farther, he obtained fossils in sufficient numbers from the rocks in which are the famous silver mines of Chañarcillo and Tres Puntas, to fix their age as belonging to the Lower Cretaceous.
Professor Whitney commented on the importance of these investigations, especially that concerning the age of the Chile coal. It is very interesting to know that the same formation carries coal in Chile which has been found to bear that indispensable material in Northern Mexico. The vast extent over which Triassic rocks occur in Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, gives a peculiar interest to every discovery of this kind.