258 Miscellaneous. 
remarkable is the fact that this is the first and only instance in which 
I have met with either of the Capreolate Fumarie in the neighbour- 
hood, notwithstanding that they have been closely looked for. Such 
instances of the vitality of seeds are not unfrequent, but are always 
interesting, and offer some problems well worthy of solution. Why 
had not these seeds previously germinated? Perhaps because they 
were too deeply buried in the ground. Butif this beso, at what depth 
do seeds cease to vegetate, and what is the influence which, acting 
on the germ, keeps in abeyance the vital energy stored up within ?— 
Trans. Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, Jan. 1862. 
Highly interesting Discovery of new Sauroid Remains. 
Mr. O. C. Marsh, a student in the Sheffield Scientific School of 
Yale College, U.S., procured last summer from the coal formation of 
the Joggins in Nova Scotia, where he has for several seasons spent 
his long vacation in mineralogical and geological observations, two 
Saurian vertebree, of which Agassiz writes to us thus :— 
“ My dear Stilliman—A student of your Scientific School, Mr. 
Marsh, has shown me today two vertebree from the coal formation 
of the Joggins, which have excited my interest in the highest degree. 
I have never seen in the body of a vertebra such characters combined 
as are here exhibited. At first sight they might be mistaken for 
ordinary Ichthyosaurus vertebree ; but a closer examination soon shows 
a singular notch in the body of the vertebra itself such as I have 
never seen in Reptiles, though this character is common in Fishes. 
We have here undoubtedly a nearer approximation to a synthesis 
between Fish and Reptile than has yet been seen. * * * # 
The discovery of the Ichthyosauri was not more important than that 
of these vertebree ; but what would be the knowledge of their exist- 
ence without the extensive comparisons to which it has led? Now 
these vertebrze ought to be carefully compared with the vertebrae of 
bony Fishes, with those of Sauroid Fishes, of Selachians, of Batra- 
chians, of the Oolitic Crocodilians, of the newer Crocodilians, of the 
Ichthyosaurians, and of the Plesiosaurians, and all the points of re- 
semblance and difference stated; because I do not believe there is a 
vertebra known, thus far, in which are combined features of so many 
vertebrae, in which these features appear separately as characteristic 
of their type. Whatever be the fate of these remains, be sure that 
they are preserved where nothing can happen to them, and where 
_ they will be duly appreciated. 
Ever truly yours, 
“L. AGAss1z.” 
“Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, U.S., Dec, 23rd, 1861.” 
—Silliman’s Journal for January 1862. 
Discovery of Saurian Remains in the Keuper of the Jura. 
In making a section for the railroad now in construction in the 
neighbourhood of Poligny, remains of a gigantic Saurian have been 
