278 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 
the New Jersey specimens which I have studied: this is the greater later- 
ally compressed form of the tube. In this respect they vary greatly, even 
the ovate specimens, from New Jersey, being much thicker than the west- 
ern ones; but as far as the ovate and oval form of the section is concerned, 
the same variations occur among the specimens from both regions, and 
apparently of about equal numbers, only the New Jersey specimens are 
never so large as many of the western ones, and are always proportionally 
thicker, unless accidentally compressed. In the details of the branching 
of the sutures the western specimens become far more complicated than 
those on the Atlantic coast, in proportion to the size of the specimens, 
although the general plan of the divisions, or what might be called the 
primary divisions of the lobes and sinuses, are very much the same in 
all the specimens examined. In many of the western ones the secondary 
lobes between the large lobes are proportionly longer and have many more 
serrations on their margins, and in one small individual the ventral sinus, 
as formed by the two halves combined, has almost exactly the same form 
and length as those on the sides of the shell. Even on Baculites grandis 
Hall and Meek, the general features of the sutures are the same, where, as 
in one example examined, the width of the specimen is fully 5 inches. 
Considering all these features and close resemblances between the 
eastern and western specimens I am much inclined to draw the line between 
the two species, as recognized by Mr. Say and Dr. Morton, considering it 
as a geographical limit more than as a difference in features, although there 
is that difference in size and relative thickness of the specimens, and to 
consider the western forms as properly belonging to B. compressus, and 
the New Jersey specimens as properly belonging to B. ovatus, irrespective 
of the form of their section, although it is quite difficult to find one equally 
rounded on the two margins among those from New Jersey. 
BACULITES ASPER. 
Plate xLvi, Figs. 10, 11. 
Baculites asper Morton: Synopsis, p. 43, Pl. 1, Figs. 12, 13, and Pl. x1u, Fig. 2. 
This species of Dr. Morton does not appear to have been noticed by 
writers among the fossils of New Jersey, but it nevertheless seems to have 
