Davis—On the Fossil Fishes of the Chalk of Mount Lebanon. 459 
Some particulars are given by Corneille Lebrun (‘‘ Voyage au Levant,” 1714, 
chap. 58, p. 809) of the discovery of fossil fishes in the neighbourhood of Tripoli, 
the locality referred to being probably that of Hakel. He describes ‘‘ certaines 
pierres ott l’on voit la ressemblance de diverses sortes de poissons, mais si 
naturelle qu’on ni aurait regarder cela sans admiration.” These stones were 
found in a high mountain some hours distance from Tripoli. The stones are 
described as exhibiting no peculiarity until they are broken or divided, when 
each of the two pieces exhibits the resemblance of a fish. M. Lebrun made a 
collection of these objects which so interested him, and in his work gives an 
engraving of one of the specimens. 
M. C. F. Volney also refers to the imprints of fishes, shells, and plants 
on the stony schists between Batronn and Djebail au Kesraonau, which he found 
during his travels in Syria and Egypt during the years 1783 to 1785. 
M. Guettard, in his ‘‘ Nouvelle Collection de Mémoires sur différentes parties 
des Sciences et des Arts,” vol. iii., p. 429, 1768, has some observations on the fossil 
fishes of Lebanon, specimens of which he has figured. 
M. de Blainville was the first author who appears to have studied the Lebanon 
fossils from a zoological point of view. He determined the genera of two 
species, which he described without figuring, namely, Clupea brevissima and 
Clupea beurardi; these names the fossils still retain (Sur les Ichthyolithes ou 
les Poissons fossiles; Nouveau Dictionnaire d’ Histoire Naturelle, tome xxvii. 1818. 
The work was translated into German, in 1823, by Kriiger). 
M. Louis Agassiz, when preparing his great work on ‘Recherches sur les 
Poissons Fossiles,” 1833-43, had seen only a comparatively small number of 
specimens from the chalk of Lebanon. Four new species are described: Clupea 
lata, C. minima, Rhinellus furcatus and Splyreena amici; two others are named, 
but not described, Pagellus leptosteus, and Vomer parvulus; and further details 
are given with respect to the two species described by de blainville. Professor 
Agassiz states that M. Jules Amic communicated to him the figures of a fine 
collection of fishes from Lebanon, for the most part new, which would enable 
him to determine the relationships of the fishes of that locality with those of 
other strata already well known. MM. Alexandre Brogniart and St. Moricaud 
are also indicated as being the possessors of fossil fishes from Lebanon. The 
examples possessed by the latter were not utilized by Agassiz, but M. Pictet 
afterwards described some of them under the generic name of Spaniodon (‘ Dese. 
de quelque poissons fossiles du Mont Liban, 1850”). The collection of M. Amie, 
at Geneva, was seen by Messrs. Pictet and Humbert, who state that the descrip- 
tion of it by Agassiz was exaggerated, and that it served to constitute only a 
very small number of new species. 
In 1833, the memoir of M. Botta on the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon was 
published. (‘‘ Memoirs Soc. Geol. de France,” vol. i., p. 1385.) In it the two best 
