nature of the directions. What is the cause of the red and purplish scales? When red scales are in contact with water give by an intense green. In a condition of deposition, and in one place I saw green slate terminated by thin quartzite (1/4 inch thick) and at once above it red plate. Of course mud bottoms are not the home of an abundance of life. Can these red scales have any thing to do with shallow water or some conditions? I am of the thicken quartzite gives rise to a slate scale marked with oozing, circular in nature or worm burrows. Juveniles there were originally holes in the pastry muds and are now filled with the fine sand as casts was fastened to the bottom of the quartz- ite layer. The quartzites are variously of very fine sand, and seemingly always of clean white quartz sands. The phenomena are for deep water and far away from the shore, or for dry rivers bringing only clean marked fine sands.