40 Fossil Fishes of Westjield. 



"We sometimes find the specimens a good deal mutilated; 

 so much so indeed, that the form of the fish is entirely lost, and 

 the tail and fins are scattered about promiscuously ; and this too 

 in the vicinity of other specimens that are entire. Hence we 

 cannot impute this mutilation, as is usually done, to a disturbing 

 force acting on the rock at the time in which the fish was en- 

 veloped, or afterwards. But if we suppose that the fish, as they 

 died, were gradually enveloped by mud, it is easy to conceive 

 how some of them might have putrified and fallen to pieces, be- 

 fore they were buried deep enough to be preserved ; or it might 

 be, that most of the fish was devoured by some other animal : 

 and in either of these ways we might exj)ect to find only scat- 

 tered relics enveloped in the rock. The great resemblance of 

 these ichthyolites to those found on the bituminous slate of Mans- 

 field, in Germany, has been already noticed. Probably all of 

 them belong to the genus PaloBOthrissicm, (Blainsville). I am 

 inclined to believe that I have found four species." Vid. p. 236, 

 pi. xiv., fig. 44, 45, 46, 48. 



As is generally the case, the fish appear to have lain on their 

 sides when enveloped in the rock. 



There are doubtless numerous localities of fossil fish in our 

 widely extended country, which have not yet met the eye of a 

 scientific naturalist. An intelligent friend has recently furnish- 

 ed us with a notice of a very interesting locality of this nature ; 

 he is the proprietor of a marble quarry situate in "• Oval Lime- 

 stone Valley," or " Nipnose Valley," on the west branch of the 

 Susquehanna river, Pennsylvania. The marble is a greenish 

 coloured conglomerate, somewhat resembling verd antique, and 

 admits of a high polish, being finegrained and hard, interspersed 

 with softer spots of an argillaceous nature. Some parts of this 

 marble are represented as being replete with the remains of fossil 

 fish, about the size of a herring or carp ; some specimens retain- 

 ing the impressions of the scales ; others only of the bones. The 

 stone was too brittle to permit the obtaining of any of the speci- 

 mens whole. 



