Notices of Memoirs—On Lepidotus and Dapedius. 413 
Salt Lakes, Lake Austin, and elsewhere. The water-level in the 
mines is usually within 100 feet depth. ‘Timber, however, is 
relatively scarce. The roads are bad at present. 
Some large auriferous ironstone lodes are also met with, hematitic 
at top and pyritous below. In the Weld Range the exposed 
hematite is botryoidal, giving rise to the local opinion that it was 
a lava-flood. In some of the soft clayey bands of these lodes the 
Kangaroos scratch out caves; and the natives probably followed 
this plan in getting at the lode itself centuries ago, and here they 
still work (for the whites) with primitive wooden tools, cutting 
round a mass of the ore and then wedging it off. This ironstone 
was worked on a larger scale, and probably traded to great 
distances, before the white invasion of Western Australia. The 
red ochre of the lode has been mistaken for cinnabar. 
The several mines and diggings are described in detail (pages 
12-21); and, in conclusion, this Goldfield is regarded as exceedingly 
rich, and to have a brighter out-look than any other in the Colony ; 
the distance to be traversed in getting to Kimberley, and the salt 
water of Yilgarn, being disadvantageous to them. Pilbarra and 
the Ashburton have not been proved to be large reefing districts. 
T. R. J. 
IJ.—On tHe Cranran Ostrontogy or tHE Mesozotc Ganorp 
Fisnes, Lzprorus anp Dapuxpius. By A. Suita Woopwarp, 
HIG. S 4 EAS. 
N this paper the author describes the cranial osteology of 
Lepidotus, so far as decipherable from specimens discovered 
by Mr. Alfred N. Leeds in the Oxford Clay of Peterborough, and 
from Wealden specimens in the collection of the late Mr. S. H. 
Beckles. He then compares the skull with that of Dapedius, as 
shown by a fine specimen from the Lower Lias of Lyme Regis in 
the British Museum. 
From the observations recorded it would be premature to make 
any very general deductions, the characters of the skull having 
yet to be discovered in the majority of the Mesozoic fishes. The 
new facts, however, are interesting as tending to confirm a con- 
clusion that must have impressed everyone who has deeply studied 
these extinct fishes, namely, that it is impossible in Jurassic and 
Cretaceous formations to recognise any absolute sub division of the 
so-called ganoids into ‘“ Lepidosteoidei”? and ‘“ Amioidei.” The 
skulls of Lepidosteus and Dapedius differ from those of existing 
“ganoids”’ in exhibiting the backward extension of the basicranial 
canal; and the cartilaginous cranium of Dapedius is remarkably 
similar in every respect to that of the modern salmon (Salmo), 
except somewhat more ossified. Both Lepidotus and Dapedius agree 
with Lepidosteus and Amia in the fact that the membrane bones 
of the roof do not extend quite to the occipital border of the cranium; 
but Dapedius at least is distinguished from Amia and approximated 
to Lepidosteus by the course of the olfactory nerves across the orbital 
cavity, while Lepidotus is paralleled only by the last-named genus 
1 Abstract of paper read before the Zoological Society, June 20th, 1893. 
