397 



plied with nerves from the fifth pair. The organ of hearing 

 had not been investigated particularly, but nothing unusual 

 had as yet been noticed. 



The President stated that he had suspected these fish 

 would be found to have some structure analogous to an eye, 

 and that the fact of its not being developed might be owing 

 to a want of stimulus through a series of generations. 



Dr. Charles T. Jackson exhibited a series of specimens, 

 illustrating the economic geology of North Carolina, and of 

 portions of Georgia and Tennessee. The districts described 

 by him were, — 



I. That of Deep river, in Chatham and Moore counties, 

 where a most interesting coal field of the Oolitic or Liassic 

 period exists, and appears to be parallel to, if not a continuation 

 of, the coal formation of the same geological epoch, near Rich- 

 mond, Virginia. The coal of Deep river is of the most bitumi- 

 nous variety of caking and gas-making coal, highly desirable for 

 the use of gas works in the cities of the Atlantic coast. Speci- 

 mens of the coal and of the fossil plants and shells characteristic 

 of this coal-field, were exhibited. 



1st. A beautiful and delicately-formed plant, not yet recog- 

 nized or described, found in the shales accompanying the grind- 

 stone grit of the lower part of the basin, obtained near Jones's 

 Mills, by Dr. Scott, of Raleigh. 



2d. Zamites, ( ?) foliage, from the shales higher up in the series. 



3d. Shells of the genus Possidonia, probably, (P. mya and P. 

 minuta.) 



Specimens of the bituminous coal from the gulf of Deep river. 



Dr. Jackson also described numerous black and brilliant rhom- 

 boidal scales of fishes, which probably belong to the genus 

 Catopterus, of Redfield, and abound in the fire clays and shales 

 immediately contiguous to the coal. No dorsal spine or tail of 

 this fish has yet been discovered at this locality, so as to enable 

 the Ichthyologist to pronounce, with certainty, on the genus. 



Teeth and the coprolites of Sauroid fishes, and of Saurian rep- 



