FOSSIL PISCES AND OSSEOUS BRECCIA. 267 



tained, although it appears more nearly allied to the class 

 mammalia than to any of the others in the system. 



CLASS. PISCES. 



Cuvier has not devoted much of his attention to the 

 natural history of fossil fishes. He only mentions in a 

 very general way, in his great work, the few genera met 

 with in the gypsum quarries around Paris. Five species 

 are mentioned. The first described belongs to a new 

 genus allied to that named amier, and is conjectured to be 

 a fresh water species. The second is nearly allied to 

 two fresh water genera, viz. the mormyrus of La Cepide, 

 natives of the river Nile, and the pcscilia of Bloch, na- 

 tives of the fresh waters of Carolina. The third appears 

 to be a species of sparus, different from any of the present 

 species. The fourth and fifth are very dubious. 



Osseous Conglomerate, or Breccia. 



Cuvier gives a very interesting account of the osseous 

 conglomerate, or breccia, which occurs in the rock of 

 Gibraltar, and in other limestone rocks and hilk upon 

 the coasts of the Mediterranean. 



This breccia occurs in a gray-coloured compact dis- 

 tinctly stratified floetz limestone, which abounds in the 

 Islands and on the coasts of the Mediterranean. It is not 

 intermixed with the limestone, nor does it alternate with 

 it in beds, but occurs filling up fissures, or in caves si- 

 tuated in it. It is composed of angular fragments of the 

 limestone, of bones, usually of ruminating animals, ge- 

 nerally broken, and never in skeletons, and land shells, 

 cemented together by a reddish brown coloured ochry 

 ^alcarious basis. The base is sometimes vesicular, and 



