S8 Fossil Esox or Pike. 



length. Parkinson's Organic remains, vol. iii., contains good figures 

 of the teeth of most of the above named species ; also MantelPs 

 Geology of the South East of England, p. 132. For further 

 observations on the fossil remains of sharks, vid. " Journ. Acad. 

 Nat. Science of Philad." vol. iv, p. 232. pi. xiv., in an essay pub- 

 lished by the author, entitled " Notice of the Plesiosaurus, and 

 other ybssil reliquia, from the state of New Jersey, 1824." 



Professor Hitchcock, in his " report of the geology, &c. of 

 Massachusetts,'" p. 193, pi. xi., and xii. has given figures of fos- 

 sil teeth and vertebrae, found in what he terms the plastic clay 

 formation at Gay-head, Martha's Vineyard ; the former are 

 evidently the remains of sharks, similar to those found in the 

 green-sand of New Jersey, the latter are either not well figured, or 

 resemble but indifferently the vertebras of sharks ; but possibly 

 the statement of the author, that "in general they (the bones) 

 are much broken and often rolled," will explain their anomalous 

 forms. 



In addition to the genus Squalus, the insolated fragments of 

 other cartilaginous fishes, as the Raia and Acipenser, are occa- 

 sionally found in similar localities as the former. 



Fishes proper. 



The fossil bones of fishes hitherto discovered in the United 

 States, belong principally to Cuvier's second division, or 



Malacopterygia. 



Including among others the carp and the gar. On the 24th 

 of January 1825, the author of these remarks had the pleasure 

 to be present at the reading of an essay by Dr Dekay, before 

 the New York Lyceum of Nat. History, on the " Fossil fish of 

 the U. States. " This essay we believe has never yet been pub- 

 lished, but we were impressed at the time by the following state- 

 ment of Dr Decay : " All the fossil fish which I have examined 

 in the United States, are modelled after the Esox osseus, or 

 bony-scaled pike of the Mississippi,*" which last species then, he 

 thinks, may stand, " as the representative of a former creation, — 

 the Logans of their race." This curious fact was subsequently 



