FISHES OF THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. iS 
More material is needed before the fishes of this genus can be accurately 
described and their relations with other recent and fossil forms determined. 
The details of the head plates cannot be made out from the specimens yet 
obtained, since the bony structure of the cranium readily exfoliates, the 
outer surface adhering firmly to the matrix, the plates and bones being thus 
split and their surfaces and outlines lost. So far as we can judge from this 
material of the genus Actinophorus it would seem to be most closely allied to 
the Palzeoniscidee, and yet an aberrant member of the group of the Lepidos- 
teidxe, occupying an intermediate position between Palceoniscus and the 
Chondrosteidxe. The absence of fulcra is perhaps not complete, as they may 
be carried by the upper lobe of the caudal fin, a character not shown in the 
specimens before us; but this is not a family, but rather a generic character, 
for within the family of the Paleeoniscide the genera Palaoniscus, Euryno- 
tus, ete., have the fins all bordered with fulcra, while Platysomus is without 
them. None of the fins are lobate, and therefore it is not a Crossopterygian. 
It is to be expected that when better specimens of this fish shall be obtained 
and we are able to complete our description of it, it will be found to hold 
important relations to the other described Palaeozoic tile-scaled Ganoids, and 
will perhaps become the type of a new family. 
AcTINOPHORUS CLARKH, 0. sp. 
Plate XLIX, Figs. 1, 1°. 
Body slender, about two feet in length by two and a half inches in 
diameter at the pectoral fins; head conical, pointed, well ossified, seven to 
eight inches long, branchiostegals numerous; pectoral fins broadly conical, 
somewhat falcate, three inches long by one and a half wide, containing about 
sixty fine, parallel, ossified rays; anal fin eighteen inches from muzzle, rela- 
tively small, triangular in outline; caudal strongly heterocereal; dorsal 
unknown; scales oblong, two to three millimeters wide by five millimeters 
long, thin and delicate; body long-fusiform or cylindrical, as broad as high. 
This peculiar fish constitutes one of several discoveries recently made 
by Dr. William Clark, of Berea, in the Cleveland shale at Brooklyn, Cuya- 
hoga County, Ohio, He has obtained parts of several individuals, but they 
