80 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



A BLASTOID FOUND IN THE DEVONIAN ROCKS 



OF ONTARIO. 



By Henry Montgomery, M.A., 

 Science Master in the Collegiate Institute, Toronto. 



In the month of July 1879, while examining the Hamilton 

 G-roup of the Devonian Series of rocks in the south-western part 

 of the Province of Ontario, I had the good fortune to discover 

 an apparently rare fossil Echinoderm imbedded therein. It was 

 taken by me from a limestone quarry near Thedford or Widder 

 village in the township of Bosanquet, county of Lambton. Soon 

 afterwards I learnt that Dr. George Jennings Hinde had, a short 

 time previously, obtained a specimen of the same species from the 

 rocks of the same region, but it was not in so good a state of pre- 

 servation as the one which I had found. It is regretted that, 

 notwithstanding repeated and careful searches since that time, 

 I have been unable to procure more than a single specimen of 

 this form, which seems also to be exceedingly rare (if indeed it 

 occurs) in the United States. Although it appears to be a 

 variety of the Nucleocriuus lucina, a new species collected by 

 Mr. C. A. White from the Hamilton shales, Livingstone Co., 

 New York State, and described by Professor James Hall in 1862, 

 yet it does not seem to have been described or even mentioned as 

 occurring in Canadian rocks. Nor am I aware that any represen- 

 tative of the genus Nucleocrinus, and indeed it may be said, of 

 the entire order Blastoidea (unless the Codaster or Codonaster 

 Canadensis of Billings be referred to this order), has ever been 

 described from the rocks of Can-^da. Therefore I have thought 

 it advisable to publish figures and a description of the specimen 

 alluded to, at the same time contrasting it with Pentremites 

 Godoni, several excellent specimens of which, as well as of P. 

 piriformis, of the Sub-Carboniferous rocks of Illinois, are in my 

 cabinet. 



For assistance kindly extended to me in the study of this ex- 

 tinct form and its relations I am deeply indebted to my friend 

 and instructor Dr. E.J. Chapman of University College, Toronto. 

 Several very valuable hints were likewise furnished me by Dr. 

 Hinde, F.G.S., New South Kensington Museum, London, England, 

 and Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, F.G.S., Canadian G-eological Survey. 



