One could see that there had once been considerable

excavations, but the good layers were now deeply covered by
talus, and could only be exposed after much digging
One could see that there had once been considerable
excavations, but the good layers were now deeply covered by
talus, and could only be exposed after much digging. It was
about thirty years since the pits had been worked. Dr.
Bacmeister found for us a strong country youth, Max Deschle,
who dug under our direction all next day in the quarry near the
house. The rock is not so easy to work as that at Florissant,
and it does not split so well into slabs, but we readily found
a number of fossils. Most numerous were the plants; leaves of
cinnamon (Cinnamomurn polymorphum), soapberry (Sapindus
falcifolius), maple (Acer trilobatum), grass (Poacites loevis)
and reeds (Phragmites oeningensis), with twigs of the conifer
Glyptostrobus europoeus. We obtained a single seed of the very
characteristic Podogonium knorrii. Certain molluscs were
abundant; Planorbis declivis, Lymnoea pachygaster, Pisidium
priscum, with occasional fragments of the mussel Anodonta
lavateri. Ostracods, Cypris faba, were also found. The best
find, however, was a well-preserved fish, the lepidocottus
brevis (Agassiz), showing in the region of the stomach its last
meal, of Planorbis declivis. This greatly interested Max, who
during the rest of the day chanted, as he swung the pick,
'Fischlein, Fischlein, komme!'--but no other Fischlein was
apparently within hearing distance. Not a single insect was
obtained, except that on the talus at one of the other quarries
I picked up a poorly preserved beetle, apparently the Nitidula
melanaria of Heer.