THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. X. 



No. XI.— NOVEMBER, 1903. 



OIRXG-HsTJ^Xi .A.I^TIGXJES. 



I. — Notes on some specimens op Straight-shelleb Nautiloidea 



COLLECTED BY THE EeV. SaMUEL CoULING, M.A., ChING ChOW 



FU, KiAOCHOw, North China, 

 By G. C. Chick, Assoc.E.S.M., F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History). 



(PLATE XXII.) 



THE specimens, etc., upon which the following notes are based 

 were sent from China by the Eev. Samuel Couling, M.A., to 

 Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., who has kindly permitted me to 

 examine them. They consist of two examples displayed in longi- 

 tudinal section upon the surface of two blocks of limestone, and 

 photographs of three other examples, together with the rubbing of 

 a fourth similarly preserved. 



" The locality from which the fossils come is found in Eichthofen's 

 Atlas [von China], West Shantung plate, south of Tsing tshou fu, 

 36° 40' N. Lat., 118° 40' E. Long. The hills are marked Mittel and 

 Ober Sinisch " (i.e. between Cambrian and Silurian in age). 



The specimens belong to the straight-shelled Nautiloidea, and 

 represent at least three distinct species. 



One of these is indicated on the weathered surface of a slab of 

 grey limestone by a longitudinal section showing a nummuloidal 

 siphuncle, and, towards the posterior part of the specimen, three 

 or four chambers. A length of about 95 mm. is preserved and is 

 entirely septate ; the shell apparently tapers very slowly ; its 

 greatest width is about 50 mm., the siphuncular elements here being 

 about 24 mm. and the depth of the chambers 11mm. Obstruction 

 rings (anneaux obstructeiirs) are well developed, conti'acting the 

 central axis of the siphuncle into an annulated endosiphuncle with 

 tubules radiating from the annulations. The openings of these 

 tubules are well shown in several of the siphuncular elements at 

 the upper part of the specimen. The relative proportions of this 

 specimen resemble those of the posterior portion of Barrande's 

 Orthoceras docens,^ occurring in the Silurian of Bohemia, in Etage E, 



^ J. Barrande: Bull. Soc. Geol. France, ser. ii, torn, xii, p. 453, pi. xiiA, 

 figs. 2, 3 ; and Syst. Sil. Boheme, vol, ii, texts iii (1874), p. 632, pi. ccl. 



DECADE IT. TOL. X. NO. XI. 31 



