371 



Chelymys Ma(JQUARIA. 



Two adult specimens of tliis kind were also in the series. They 

 are both much darker than the two specimens in the British Museum 

 Collection. They are also peculiar for having a very distinct, deep, 

 narrow, interrupted groove along the vertebral line, deepest and 

 widest on the fourth vertebral plate. The discal shields are also 

 marked with rather deep distinct radiating grooves, which are evi- 

 dently indentations in the bones of the animal, only covered by the 

 very thiu skin-like shields. 



Shell, length 1 1, breadth 8 inches. 



2. On some FisH from Asia Minor and Palestine. By Sir 

 John Richardson, C. B., F.R.S. L. &Ed. etc. 



Through the kindness of Dr. Gray of the British Museum, I have 

 been permitted to examine a small collection of Fish made by H. 

 Poole, Esq., in Palestine and Asia Minor. Though they do not pre- 

 sent to the ichthyologist any novel generic forms, they are interest- 

 ing on account of the localities in which they were found. 



Cyprinodon Hammonis, Cuv. et Vai. xviii. 169. 



This small fish was taken in a raarshy spot, on the immediate 

 beach of the Dead Sea, at Usduni, the supposed site of Sodom. The 

 marsh, which contained some very small puddles of salt-water in 

 which the fish were swimming, and from whence they v?ere scooped 

 out with ease by the hands, is fed by a saline spring which issues a 

 little higher up, and is so little above the level of the sea, that Mr. 

 Poole believed that the fish were washed into the pools by the waTes. 

 The opinion that the exhalations of the Dead Sea are immediately 

 fatal to animal Ufe, and that not even a bird can fly over it, has long 

 been exploded. One of Mr. Poole's companions bathed in it daily 

 with impunity, and even fancied that in diving he had discovered 

 the remains of a ruined city under its waters, opposite to Usdum. 

 Mr. Poole also observed ducks diving in it, and concluded, justly we 

 think, that they mušt have found something edible to induce them 

 to repeat that act, vvhich they did freąuently. 



Lieut. Lynch of the U. S. Navy examined the water of the Dead 

 Sea (Exp. to Jordan, &c. p. 377) with a powerful microscope, and 

 found that it contained no animalculse and no vestige of animal 

 matter. Its specific gravity was T 1 3, compared with distilled water 

 as 1-0, while water of the Atlantic from lat. 25° N. and 52° W. 

 longitude was 1"02, Another examination of the water of the Dead 

 Sea, ąuoted on the lašt page of Lieut. Lynch's book, gives its spe- 

 cific gravity as 1-227 at temp. 60°, and the solid saline matter as 

 267 in 1000. Specimens of the water taken up by Mr. Poole have 

 been deposited at the Geological Society, together with examples of 

 the water in which the fish were found, and of the salt apring vvhich 

 fed the marsh. 



