Box 14,Folder 15: Fossils 1865-1870

[pencil sketch]

Illaenus Waukesha Carrol Colleg Walter L. Rankin.

[inscription in blue ink, u.r.: 1870]

[pen sketch]

On the discovery of fish remains in glacial blue clay of the new Chicago Tunnel under Lake Michigan - By I. A. Lapham

The above is a sketch of the outline of the blackened impression of a fish found recently while excavating the new tunnel of the Chicago Water-works under Lake Michigan. Its [illegible crossed out] position was seventy six feet below the surface of the lake and about eight hundred feet out from the working shaft near the shore. The impression could be very distinctly traced on account of its difference in color from the hard tough blue clay so well described by Dr. E. Andrews in the Americana Journal of Science, Vol 48 p. 174, 1869. It was not measured, nor its outlines traced

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but the figure is made from recollection of the contractor, superintendent, and city inspector, who gives its dimensions as follows— [illegible crossed out] length about five feet; width of the body one foot; width at the narrowest place near the tail four inches. It was distinctly observed to have the lower jaw shorter than the upper, and to have a forked tail. The position was nearly horizontal, the back upward. Search was made for the remains of bones, ^scales, and teeth but none were found; nor could the impression of scales be seen. One person thinks he saw indications of fins both above and below, as shown in the sketch; others do not remember, or did not see the fins.

The new tunnel being double the area of the old one will doubtless yield many other new facts in the history of the glacial period, and should be attentively studied, from time to time as the work progresses by competent observers. The boulders taken out so far are mostly of limestone and other formations existing in the neighborhood; no granite or other northern boulders having yet been found. Several

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of those strange pockets of gravel and sand, supposed to have been frozen masses dropped from icebergs and buried in the rapidly accumulating deposits of clay, have already been encountered; and hydro = carbon gas is found in rich quantity as to require constant ventilation. Similar masses have been observed elsewhere in the drift clay.

So far as is at present known this is the first indication of the actual existence of animal life in this part of the world during the deposition of the glacial blue clays.

[inscription in pencil, u.c.: [1865?] ]

Waukesha

Fossils