340 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



The whole of these fishes have been preserved entire, the body- 

 being perfectly flattened and thrown into attitudes which imply 

 that they were imbedded when living or immediately after death. 

 The material in which they are contained is shown, by its mi- 

 croscopical and chemical characters, to have been a vegetable 

 muck or mud, and the fish were either overwhelmed by it in the 

 manner of a bursting bog, or were stifled by the non oxygenated 

 water mixed with this mud, and suddenly killed and imbedded 

 in the accumulating sediment. That they occur in this perfect 

 state and in a limited thickness of the deposit, may imply that 

 at certain times they were overwhelmed by the irruption of this 

 fetid organic mud into the water in which they lived. The bed 

 is low down in the Lower Carboniferous series, being the equivalent 

 of the Horton series of Nova Scotia; so that these fishes are 

 among the oldest that we know in the Carboniferous period ; but 

 we know, from the Horton beds, that many far larger and pre- 

 daceous ganoids were their contemporaries. No remains of these 

 have however as yet been found in the Albert or Beliveau beds, 

 which were probably deposited in limited fresh- water basins, per- 

 haps not ordinarily accessible to the larger fishes. 



Sir Philip Egerton* and Dr. Traquairf have both remarked 

 on the similarity of these fishes to those found in the Lower 

 Carboniferous of Scotland, and Dr. Newberry has described 

 very similar species from the Carboniferous of Illinois and Ohio. J 



NOTE ON A FOSSIL SEAL FROM THE LEDA CLAY 

 OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY. 



By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S. 

 Read before the Natural History Society, Oct. 29, 1277. 



This interesting geological specimen was kindly sent to me, 

 for inspection, by Dr. Grant, of Ottawa. It has an historical 

 as well as scientific interest, which bridges over not the whole 

 history of our Society, but that of its publication, The Canadian 

 Naturalist. About twenty years ago, Mr. Billings, then at 



* Journal of Geological Society, 1853. 

 f ib. 1877. 



% Report on Illinois, Vol. II ; Palaeontology of Ohio, Vol. I. 



