CRETACEOUS STRATA OF NEW JERSEY.

Sept. 30. 1841. — From Philadelphia I made a geological excursion of several days., to examine the cretaceous strata of New Jersey, in company with Mr. Conrad, to whom we are indebted for several valuable works on the fossil shells of the tertiary, cretaceous, and Silurian strata of the United States. We went first to Bristol on the Delaware to visit Mr. Vanuxem, then engaged in preparing for publication his portion of the State Survey of New York; next by Bordentown to New Egypt, and returned by the Timber Creek, recrossing the Delaware at Camden.

Although in this part of New Jersey there is no white chalk with flints, so characteristic of rocks of this age in Europe, it is still impossible to glance at the fossils, and not to be convinced that Dr. Morton was right in referring in 1834 the New Jersey deposits to the European cretaceous era. He and Mr. Conrad remarked that the American species of shells were nearly all new, or distinct from those before described, and yet very analogous to those of cretaceous strata already known. The New Jersey rocks have been separated into five subdivisions, but of these two only have proved sufficiently rich in organic remains to admit of their being compared with corresponding strata in distant regions.