464 Davis 
On the Fossil Fishes of the Chalk of Mount Lebanon. 
was immediately above or closely contiguous to that one containing Cardium 
hillanum; but the slopes of the hill-side being covered with the débris of the 
fallen cliff rendered the operation of tracing the fish-bed very difficult. 
The fish-beds of Hakel appear to extend to a considerable distance. Specimens 
exist in the collection at the British Museum, South Kensington, which were 
found at Djebail, and M. Agassiz studied specimens of Clupea which were brought 
from Mount Carmel and St. Jean d’Acre. M. de Tchihatcheff discovered a number 
of fossil fishes at Makrikoi, near Constantinople, which were considered by 
Valenciennes to be the same species as Eurypholis boissieri and sulcidens, of 
Pictet, Clupea brevissima, Blainville, and Cyclobatis oligodactylus, Egerton, found 
at Hakel. In 1840, Professor W. C. Williamson described, in the Proceedings of 
the Geological Society of London (vol. i. p. 291), certain districts in the vicinity 
of Beyrout, especially Mount Gebeel Suneen, which forms part of the Lebanon 
range immediately above Beyrout. The town is built on a triangular tongue 
of land, with undulating surface, about four miles in extent from the coast to the 
mountain. It is composed of a hard cream-coloured limestone, which exhibits 
in the cliffs or the sea-shore numerous veins of flints; this is on some parts of 
the coast overlaid by a soft calcareous rock a hundred feet in thickness, easily 
wrought, and frequently employed as a building stone. The stratigraphical 
arrangement of the rocks on Mount Gebeel Suneen is as follows :— 
Compact limestone forming the summit of the mountain, ... 100 feet. 
A seam of oysters, which may be traced completely round 
the mountain. 
A furruginous rock, ... fas cs a 500145 
Compact limestone, ... a5 Sis - 2000 5 
Coarse siliceous conglomerate, sonitaching three seams of 
lignite, and fragments of siliceous wood, bo a OUOMIes 
Compact limestone, ... i. is oi 2000! 55 
The section is taken from the flat plain at the base of the mountain, four 
hundred feet above the sea level, Amongst numerous fossil mollusca specimens 
of Clupea brevissima were found. The latter occurs in great numbers a little above 
Tripoli, on the way to the Cedars, and about thirty miles north of Beyrout. 
The Sahel Alma locality is described by M. Botta as follows:—The fish-beds 
of Sahel Alma are found beneath the convent of that name, at three hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. It is an argilo-calcareous stone, sometimes laminated, 
soft, and without appreciable odour. There are parts of a deep gray colour, 
almost resembling a plastic clay. The stratification cannot be identified, because 
the rock appears very little at the surface, which is all cultivated. ‘The impres- 
sions of fish remains occur in considerable numbers, both of individuals and 
