248 Hermann v. Meyer^s Pala&ontological Notes. 



portant fragment of the jaw of a small fish with cylindrical 

 teeth, the proper muschelkalk of Jena has only furnished the 

 Saurichthys tenuirostris, of which Agassiz [Pots. Foss., ii. b., 

 p. 88) incorrectly states, that it only occurs in the muschel- 

 kalk of Bavaria, where it is entirely unknown. It is con- 

 fined to Jena, and occasionally occurs also at Querfurth, from 

 which the specimen was derived which Biittner long ago 

 figured {Budera testis diluvii, 1710). The glauconite mus- 

 chelkalk of Mattstadt, near Apolda, contains teeth of Sau- 

 richthys Mougeoti. More important is the terebratula-lime- 

 stone of Zwetzen, containing teeth of Placodus, which, be- 

 sides Placodus gigas, seem to have belonged also to another 

 species. The most interesting specimen from Zwetzen is a 

 jaw with several teeth of a new genus of fish also of a large 

 size, which, from the dome or cupola-like form of the top of 

 the teeth I have named Tholodus, and this species Tholodus 

 Schmidi. It is best placed near Acrodus^ though the teeth 

 are wholly distinct. 



In the " Athenaeum" for June 5, 1847, Sir R. Murchison 

 has published a letter of Agassiz from America, in which he 

 expresses his astonishment at the analogy which exists be- 

 tween the types of life in the temperate regions of North 

 America and those in the molasse of Oningen. He believes, 

 consequently, that these deposits were formed in a climate 

 that was not tropical, and in this comparison he also intro- 

 duces Japan. These are exactly the same views that were 

 already published in my work on " Fossil Mammalia, Birds 

 and Reptiles, from the Molasse Marls of Oningen," which 

 work Agassiz knew before his journey to America. In that 

 work I have not only pointed out the close relation which the 

 tertiary Oningen, without renouncing its European character, 

 still bore to the present North America and Japan ; and also 

 came to the conclusion that the tertiary creatures of Oningen 

 required for their existence a climate not at all warmer than 

 that which now prevails in the region of Oningen, so that 

 the assumption of a tropical climate in which the animals of 

 the molasse have lived, is anything but well founded. 



In Tayler's museum at Haarlem, which I visited in August 

 1847, I saw the beautiful remains of the Mastodon found at 

 Oningen, which belong to the Mastodon anyustidens. In this 



