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0IAKT8 AND noMttff. 



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I I' , 



action ! So the requisites for a Geologist are — Travel ! tra/el ! 

 travel ! I dare say our readers are beginning already to con- 

 eider that " travel " is a requisite for the Geologist, as I have 

 in previous pages given them a little experience of this. ^ We 

 Y'onld now take them to Scotland — to the banks of the 

 Findhorn and Clune C^narry, Morayshire, \vhere we find Lady 

 Gonlon Gumming of Altyre at work, and Agassiz examining 

 and naming fossil, Old Kcd Sandstone, fishes — about 184 1. The 

 chief of these are what he calls Placoids and Ganoids. The 

 Chit'olepiscutiimiwjiaeis a prominent fish of the ganoids. They 

 have been so called on account of the form of their shining bony 

 scales. Their tails are formed like those of sharks or sturgeons, 

 and are different from the tails of herrings or codfish. The 

 colour of the scales is grey (silvery), brown or black according: 

 to the character of the deposit in which they are imbedded. 

 The grey limestone bed of Clune Quarry has preserved their 

 original silvery colour, giving them the appearance of fishes 

 recently dead instead of ages long gone. Another character- 

 istic of these ganoid fishes is that their teeth have a structure 

 closely resembling thai of the early amphibians (reptiles). 

 From this we would go to the banks of the Rhine ; to the 

 coal fields of Saarbruck, vhich have long been coveted by the 

 French nation, and where at last they met with dire disasters 

 in deadly encounter with the Germans in the Franco-German 

 war. Here too are entomb<^d ganoid fishes ( amhliipterns ) in 

 sarcophatji of ironstone. These ichthyolites when opened reveal 

 the ganoids in a state of wonderful completeness, with brown 

 Colour. — Returning to our own neighl)ourhood, we have a place 

 of ganoid se{)ulture, across the border in Albert Count}', New 

 Brnnswick. Here are fishes in considerable number. They 

 are generally of small size. Occasionally, however, there are 

 some, like *' Saul among the people." The small ones are known 

 by the name of palaeoniscus. Their size is from 2^ to 3 

 inches in length. The larger ganoids measure about 9 

 inches. They arc in the bituminous shales that accompany 

 the mineral Albertite, and are consequently black and 

 lustrous. Perfect specimens are not very common. They 

 are more or less fragmentary. In Morristown Township, 



