101 



question cannot be satisfactorily solved until move perfect examples 

 and a larger series of the typical A. complexus are obtained. 



The specimens collected by Mr. Eichardson, which belong to the variety 

 Suciensis, are as follows: — 



1. A very perfect and typical example, from the Sucia Islands, in 

 Division A. It measures nearl}^ four inches in its greatest diameter, 

 and corresponds exactly in septation, shape and surface markings with 

 the smaller of the two individuals figured by Meek on plate 5 of Vol. II., 

 No. 4, of the Bulletin of the Geological and Geographical Survey of the 

 Territories. Its sculpture is much like that of the type of A. complexus, 

 but its whoi'ls are much more compressed at the sides. In this latter 

 respect it accords perfectly with the characters of the variety Suciensis 

 as defined by Meek. 



2. A large cast from Division A, at North-West Bay, V. I., which 

 measures rather more than six inches across. The inner whorls are 

 crushed and imperfect, and only a few vestiges of the septation can be 

 traced. Xear the umbilical margin the elongated nodes on the longer 

 ribs are almost obsolete, and the ribs themselves, though perhaps a little 

 fainter on the peripherj^ than on the sides, are yet prominent enough to 

 decidedly interrupt the outline of the shell at its circumference. This 

 fossil is almost certainly conspecific with the large Vancouver Island 

 Ammonite represented by Mr. Gabb on plate 27 of the first volume of 

 the Palaeontology of California as A. Newberryanus, although in the figure 

 there given the ribs do not break the general contour of the shell. 

 Both have the subglobose form, the comparatively small umbilicus, with 

 its slopingly convex sides, and the entire absence of the periodic arrests 

 of growth which distinguish A. complexus, var. Suciensis from the true 

 A. Newberryanus. The ramifications of the lobes and saddles in the 

 shell figured by Mr. Gabb also are far more complex than they are in 

 the type of A. Newberryanus, and, in fiict, they are more numerous and 

 crowded than they are represented to be in Meek's figure of A. complexus, 

 var. Suciensis. In 1875 Mr. Meek kindly sent the writer photographs of 

 the original drawings of the types of the whole of the species described 

 by him from Vancouver and the Sucia Islands, for comparison with Mr. 

 Eichardson's specimens. A careful study of both led to the opinion 

 already expressed, which was communicated to Mr. Meek on the 29th of 

 August, 1876, before his last paper on these fossils had been received, but 

 rather more than three weeks after the date of its publication. In a 

 letter, dated Afton, Virginia, September 8th, 1876, Mr. Meek replied as 

 follows: "Not having the California reports at hand, I am unable to 



