556 Prof. T. Rupert Jones — Some Central African Fossils. 



fine section is exposed. They lie thrown against the granitic rocks, 

 ■which here show signs of disturbance ; and consist of thin beds of 

 ■very fine light-grey sandstone, and blue and grey shales, with an 

 occasional band of grey limestone. By camping on the spot for 

 some days, and working patiently, I was rewarded with the dis- 

 covery of fossils. . . . The shale naturally yields the most results, 

 one layer especially being one mass of small Lamellibranchiata. . . . 

 Vegetable remains are feebly represented by a few reeds and grasses. 

 Fish-scales abound ; but I was only able, and that after much labour, 

 to unearth two or three imperfect specimens of the fishes themselves. 

 These have been put into the accomplished hands of Dr. Traquair, 

 of Edinburgh, who has been kind enough to furnish the following 

 account of them" (in letter, dated 23rd April, 1888). 



Dr. Traquair refers to and describes (pp. 193-195) six specimens 

 of fossil Fish-remains : No. 1. Acrolepis (?) Drummondi, sp. nov. 

 No. 2. In a piece of cream-coloured limestone, besides numerous 

 minute scales and a fragment of a small jaw and teeth, some larger 

 scales and bones, provisionally referred to Acrolepis (?) Africanus, 

 sp. nov. Nos. 3 and 4. Small pieces of similar limestone with 

 minute scales, like those mentioned above. No. 5. Grey micaceous 

 shale with scales of another, but indeterminable, species of Fish. 

 No. 6. The clavicle of a small Fish, in shale similar to the fore- 

 going. All these are remains of Pala?oniscid Fish. 



We may remark that Fish of this kind and order are such as are 

 found also in the great Karoo Formation of the Orange-Free-State 

 and Cape Colony, incidentally referred to above. 



Prof. Drummond writes at p. 195, with reference to the fossili- 

 ferous strata which he so fortunately met with, that they " seem to 

 occupy a comparatively limited area, and have a very high dip in 

 a south-easterly direction. At the spot where my observations were 

 taken they did not extend over more than half a mile of country, 

 but it is possible that the formation may persist for a long distance 

 in other directions. Indeed, I traced it for some miles in the direction 

 in which, some fifty or sixty miles off, lay the coal already described, 

 and to which it may possibly be related." 



The fossil shells collected by Professor Henry Drummond, F.E.S.E., 

 F.G.S., etc., at Maramura, near the north-west shore of Lake 

 Nyassa, in Central Africa, occur in a piece of greenish-grey shale, 

 somewhat micaceous, numerous casts of small Bivalves, on two 

 bed-planes, forming its upper and lower surfaces. On one face the 

 casts are convex ; on the other, only hollow impressions. Similar 

 casts, in the same relative position, are inclosed in the shale ; and 

 small fragments of Fish-remains are sparsely scattered throughout. 

 The convex casts are brown, and on them here and there dark- 

 brown films partially represent the original shells. The concave 

 impressions have brown-black irony stains. 



The shells are oval-oblong, or suboblong, rounded at the enda 

 unequally ; the posterior being somewhat truncate, and the anterior 

 obliquely-truncate, with an ogee curve below the umbo. Hinge- 

 line long and straight; ventral margin slightly curved. Various 



