124 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



cable along the entire way almost to Salmon River, but at this locahty 

 the cliff is low — about sixty feet, and the fossils are more accessible 

 and readily obtained. They are exceedingly brittle and difficult to 

 extract, even though the matrix here is more shaly than in other 

 places. In not a single instance was Beatricea found erect, although 

 hundreds were seen, whereas the associated Corals and Stromatopora 

 were frequently found fossilized as they grew, and entombed in the 

 sediment which had gathered around them. 



I recollect only two instances where the base of the fossil was 

 displayed. I succeeded in getting one all right ; the other was 

 badly fractured. It resembles a Mesozoic Belemnite in outward 

 appearance. The base is so slight that I felt convinced it could 

 never have supported Beatricea in an erect position. When I 

 returned from Anticosti I pointed out to Mr. Whiteaves that I 

 thought my old friend Mr. Billings was mistaken in considering it a 

 *' coral," and that its proper classification would be among the 

 " Cuttle-fishes." Mr. Whiteaves, in reply, mentioned he had 

 received a communication from Professor Hyatt two years before to 

 the same effect, and on examining the revised edition of Dana's 

 Manual, I found a paragraph regarding the fossil previously un- 

 noticed. 



I made a close examination of the Niagara beds at Gamache, 

 or Ellis's Bay, where Richardson found a Beatrecea lo^ feet long, 

 6 inches in diameter at larger end and 5 inches at the other, but I 

 failed to discover there or elsewhere specimens of the size given in 

 the Geology of Canada. The largest I saw was under 6 feet, but I 

 was informed that a few years before I arrived, a party of American 

 gentlemen from Boston had landed near Salmon River and carried 

 off a fossil " as long as a boat-hook." 



Probably some of the section may not have seen an account of 

 a modern Cuttle-fish which had gone ashore in 1876 at Newfound- 

 land. The Rev. Moses Harvey, a well-known naturalist (who re- 

 cently discovered seals, young and old, living in inland fresh water 

 lakes in the island, many miles from the sea), made a careful examin- 

 ation of this "great devil fish," erroneously so styled. The measure- 

 ments were as follows : Of the ten arms the two long ones meas- 

 ured 30 feet in length, 5 inches in circumference at the thinner 

 portion, 8 inches at the broad end ; the short arms were 1 1 feet long 

 and 17 inches in circumference; the body was 9 feet 6 inches; the 



