Sir J. Richardson on Fish from Asia Minor. 487 



Sea (Exp. to Jordan, &c. p. 377) with a powerful microscope, and 

 found that it contained no animalcula and no vestige of animal 

 matter. Its specific gravity was 1*13, compared with distilled water 

 as 1-0, while water of the Atlantic from lat. 25° N. and 52° W. 

 longitude was 1*02. Another examination of the water of the Dead 

 Sea, quoted on the last page of Lieut. Lynch's book, gives its spe- 

 cific gravity as r227 at temp. 60°, and the solid saline matter as 

 267 in 1000. Specimens of the water taken up by Mr. Poole have 

 been deposited at the Geological Society, together with examples of 

 the water in which the fish were found, and of the salt spring which 

 fed the marsh. 



With respect to the Cyprinodonts, several of the species inhabit 

 salt and fresh waters indifferently, the C. Hammonis being one of the 

 number. It was originally discovered by Ehrenberg in the springs 

 of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, and subsequently in great plenty in 

 other districts of Egypt and Syria. M. Eloy found it in the waters 

 of Damascus, and Riippell states that it is an inhabitant of all 

 parts of the Red Sea, and also of the fresh-water springs at Tor, 

 which have a temperature of 26^° of Reaumur or 91°'6 of Fahr. 

 This is also the temperature of one of the hot springs of Cannea in 

 Ceylon, inhabited by the Ambassis t/iermalis. M. Renaud, on send- 

 ing examples of this Ambassis to Cuvier, stated that the heat of the 

 spring was 1 1 5° Fahr. ; but there is reason to infer, either that his 

 thermometer was incorrect, or that he took the temperature of the 

 feeding spring only. 



When Dr. Davy visited the springs in October 1817, the hottest 

 well raised the thermometer to 107°, but he was told that the heat 

 fluctuated, and had been observed as high as 110° F. There are in 

 all seven wells, their temperatures being various, and that of one of 

 them as low as 86°. In one only, in which the thermometer stood 

 at 91°, did he observe fish. He thought it probable that all the 

 wells were supplied with water from the same source (Davy's 

 Travels in Ceylon, p. 44). 



In an excursion from the south side of the Sea of Marmora to the 

 Asiatic Olympus, Mr. Poole obtained several Cyprinoids and some 

 Gobies chiefly from Lake Apollonia or Apollonitis near Broussa, and 

 from the River Gemlek that falls into the Sinus Cianus. He also 

 caught some Trout on the summit of Olympus itself. The specimens 

 are unfortunately so much decayed that their original forms cannot be 

 ascertained with sufficient precision, but they have much resemblance 

 to the common S alma f aria of Linnaeus, and like it have two longi- 

 tudinal rows of teeth on the vomer, without a cluster on the front 

 of that bone. The Cyprinoids and Gobies are in good condition. 



Cyprinus Bithynicus, Richardson. 



The Cyprini resemble one another so closely, that it is matter of 

 extreme difficulty to determine the species when unaided by correctly 

 labelled specimens. One of Mr. Poole's fish, caught in Lake Apol- 

 lonitis, has the four minute barbels of Cyprinus carpio, but differs 



