372 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



groove is formed at the base of the fiu, which affords an additional hold for the 

 ventral fin of the female. After the season of copulation is over, and the testi- 

 cles regain their quiescent state, this epithelium almost disappears. At the 

 same time the mammary sack diminishes very much in size, so that when the 

 testicles are reduced to their smallest size, hardly a trace of the sack remains. 

 One or the other of these forms of appendages have been found on the anal fin 

 of the male in all the species of embiotocoid fishes I have examined. 



Mr. Stearns exhibited some fossils collected by Mr. Schmidt near 

 Orleans Bar, Klamath County. 



Professor Whitney exhibited some peculiar ores from Nevada 

 and Mexico. Those from Nevada were antimoniate of lead, con- 

 taining considerable silver. This occurs in Humboldt County, and 

 in sufficiently large quantities to be mined and smelted, with success 

 as is stated, the value of the silver being about $100 per ton. The 

 Mexican ore is a pure oxide of antimony, which will be more fully 

 described hereafter. It occurs in several mines in the northern 

 provinces. 



Professor Whitney made some remarks on the mineral species 

 occurring in California and on the Pacific Coast of America in 

 general. The following is an abstract of these remarks : 



He stated that the number of minerals occurring in California, and on the 

 Pacific coast in general, taking the country from Northern Mexico to British 

 Columbia, was quite small in proportion to the area of the region. Especially 

 among the silicates is there a great deficiency in species, and very few of those 

 which do occur are found of sufficiently well crystallized form to be valuable as 

 cabinet specimens. 



The total number of species (following the fourth edition of Dana's Mineralogy 

 for names, etc.) believed to exist on the Pacific coast, including Northern Mex- 

 ico, Arizona, California, Nevada and Oregon, is one hundred and ten, of which, 

 however, thirteen are somewhat doubtful. Of the one hundred and ten, there 

 are eighty-nine which occur in California. Some of the mineral species most 

 common in other parts of the world, and especially in miuing regions, are either 

 entirely unknown here, or else exceedingly rare. Thus barytes, which is so 

 abundant a veinstone in England and Germany, is almost unknown in the Sierra 

 Nevada, having been only found in one or two localities, and there in small 

 quantity. Fluor is entirely wanting in the Sierra Nevada, although found in 

 some quantity in Arizona and Nevada. Not a trace of this elsewhere so com- 

 mon mineral has been found, so far as known, in California. 



Among the silicates most universally diffused, but which are up to this time 

 entirely unknown in California, the following may be mentioned as some of 

 the most prominent : beryl, topaz, zircon, Wollastonite, scapolite, spodumene, 

 Allanite, iolite, staurotide, kyanite, spinel, nepheliue, datholite and all the zeo- 

 lites, in other countries so abundant where volcanic rocks occur. Not a well 



