195 



inch and then hecoming subcylimli-ical and of nearly uniform thick- 

 ness. Apices of guard and phragmocone eccentric and placed nearest 

 to the siphonal side. Alveolar cavity occuping much more than one- 

 half of the entire guard: outline of transverse section at the thickest 

 end nearly circular, but a little flattened at the sides. 



Length of the only specimen collected, sixty millimetres; maximum 

 breadth of the same, at the lai-ger end and from the siphonal to the 

 antisiphonal side, twenty-one and a-half millimetres. 



" Coal locality. South side of Skidegate Channel, from base of 

 Subdivision C." Dr. Gr. M. Dawson. One distorted, imperfect, and 

 badly preserved example. 



In the Queen Charlotte Islands, as in the Black' Hills of Dakota, the 

 few and imj)erfect guards of Belemnites which have yet been collected 

 ajjpear to be readily separable into two sets, viz., into those which are 

 short and comparatively thick, and into those which are long and com- 

 paratively slender. The Skidegate representatives of the former set 

 seem to correspond fairly well with the typical form of B. densus from 

 Dakota, while S2)ecimeus of the latter set from the same locality agree 

 perfectly with slender individuals from the Black Hills which have 

 been descril)ed as a variety of that species, but which Mr. Meek thinks 

 may be probablj' distinct and to which therefore it has here been 

 thought convenient to apply a pi-ovisional name. 



The apices of the specimen described above and of the one collected 

 by Mr. Richardson in 18*72 are no doubt rather more abruptly pointed 

 than are those of some of the types of B. densus from Dakota as here 

 restricted, but no other appreciable dilference can be detected between 

 them. Moreover, the Utah specimen of B. densus figured by Meek is 

 quite as abruptly pointed as the one from Skidegate Inlet represented 

 on Plate 22. The guard of the specimen collected by Mi*. Richardson 

 and described on pages 11 and 12 of the present volume has a faint 

 apical groove on the siphonal and presumably ventral side, but the one 

 obtained by Dr. Dawson, which is larger as well as proportionally 

 shorter and thicker, has no apical groove. 



Belemnites Skidegatensis. (Nom. Pi-ov.) 



Plate 22, figs. 2, 2 a, 2 /; and 2 c. 



Belemnites densus, Meek & Hayden. — " Slender variety." Palaeontology of the 



Upijer Missouri, p. 5, figs, la, h, c, only. 



Guard rather long and slender, increasing very gradually in thick- 

 ness from the point upwards : outline of transverse section at the 



