458 Davis—On the Fossil Fishes of the Chalk of Mount Lebanon. 
It is with unfeigned pleasure that I take this opportunity to express my 
indebtedness to those friends who, in many ways, have assisted my researches, 
and more especially to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., Director of the Geological 
Department of the British Museum; to Mr. William Davies, F.G.S., whose great 
practical knowledge is an invaluable aid to the student in this branch of palzeon- 
tology; to the Earl of Enniskillen, and Dr. E. Perceval Wright; and to Mr. 
Robert Damon, F.G.S., who has generously placed his rich private collection 
freely at my service. 
Il.—DESCRIPTION OF LOCALITIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
The existence of fossil fishes in the chalk-beds of Mount Lebanon has been 
known from remote antiquity. They were found and their nature discussed by 
Herodotus about the year 450 B.c. In 1248, it is related in the History of Saint 
Louis by De Joinville (reprinted in the Le Temps newspaper on May 11th, 1865), 
that whilst he was travelling in the neighbourhood of Sidon, at the present time 
called Saida, a stone was brought to him which, being split in two, exposed the 
form of a fossil fish. The circumstance is related in the following words: ‘ On 
apporta au roi une pierre qui se levait par écailles, le plus merveilleuse du 
monde; car, quand on levait une écaille, on trouvait entre les deux pierres la 
forme d’un poisson de mer. Le poisson était de pierre, mais il ne manquait 
rien & sa forme: ni yeux, ni arétes, ni couleur, ni autre chose qui empéchat qu’il 
ne fit tel que sil fit vivant. Le roi demanda une pierre et trouva une T'anche 
dedans, de couleur brune et de telle facon qu'une Tanche doit étre.” 
In a note to the translation of the works of de Blainville into German it is 
stated that Jonas Korte, during his travels in the Holy Land, found a white 
slate, between the layers of which were reddish skeletons of fishes. 
M. Maraldi communicated a paper, printed in the “Histoire de l’Académie 
des Sciences,” 1703, in which he describes certain dried-up fishes in stones 
which had been taken to Phoenecia, in the territory of the city of Biblis, now 
named Gibeal, over mountains almost inaccessible and distant fifteen miles from 
the sea. The author attempts to account for their presence by supposing that 
as there are subterranean waters, so there must be subterranean fishes; and as 
the waters are carried up, according to the system of M. de la Hire, as vapour, 
the latter, perhaps, carries with it the eggs and small seeds, after which, when 
the vapour condenses and becomes again water, the eggs can hatch and become 
fishes and shells. He then conceives it quite possible that by some accident the 
water may become diverted or evaporated, and the fishes which it nourished, 
left high and dry, became enveloped in the earth, which, as it became petrified, 
petrified also the remains of the fishes. 
