399 



Carboniferous age, which, spreading southeastward around the 

 head of the bay, coalesce with the Carboniferous rocks of Nova 

 Scotia. Tiie group of strata including the asphaltic shales and 

 Albert coal are seen by their stratigraphical relations to form the 

 lowest division of this series. Underlying the gypsiferous shales 

 and limestone, which are succeeded above by the true coal meas- 

 ures of New Brunswick, they occupy precisely the same position 

 as the analogous fossiliferous rocks of Horton and Gaspereau in 

 Nova Scotia, and correspond with the Vespertine group of the 

 Appalachian system. Prof. Rogers illustrated by a section on the 

 blackboard his own observations in regard to the geological place 

 of these rocks, and appealed to the more ample investigations of 

 Prof. Robb and Prof. Dawson to the same effect, showing that 

 so far from being Triassic, these asphaltic fish-beds belong to 

 a period even more ancient than that of the Carboniferous 

 limestone. 



Prof. Agassiz invited the members of the Society to 

 be present at the Inauguration of the Zoological Museum 

 at Cambridge, on Tuesday, Nov. 13. 



Some specimens of Mallotus villosus from Labrador 

 were presented by Dr. Bryant. 



Prof. Agassiz drew attention to the remarkable differ- 

 ence in the size of the anal fin in the male and female 

 of the Mallotus villosus^ it being much the larger in the 

 former ; this fish was also very interesting to him, as it 

 at one time was supposed to be the only fossil fish iden- 

 tical with living species, an exception to a great paleon- 

 tological rule ; this supposed fossil Mallotus he afterward 

 ascertained was taken from a clay-stone of modern for- 

 mation. 



The Corresponding Secretary read letters from Dr. 

 Christopher Johnston, of Baltimore, accepting Corre- 

 sponding Membership; from the Bavarian Academy and 

 the Verein fijr Naturkunde at Wiesbaden, acknowledg- 

 ing the reception of the Society's publications. 



