HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 123 



Natural History Society, Montreal 



"^Extract from a Montreal Paper. 



The last regular meeting of the session was held last evening 

 in the Society's hall. An interesting paper was read on " Recent 

 Discoveries of Lt.-Col. Grant in the Fossils of Niagara Limestone." 

 The fossils exhibited were from the collection of Lt.-Col. Grant. 

 Hamilton, Ontario. He has long been known as a diligent and 

 successful collector in the formation near that city. Many of the 

 specimens passed through the hands of the late Mr. Billings, and a 

 new species of sponge { Atdocopina Granti) was named by Mr. Bill- 

 ings in honor of its discoverer. Col. Grant has recently made 

 many new acquisitions, some of which he has kindly presented to 

 the Museum of the University. 



Some of these specimens illustrate the graptolites (remarkable) 

 of the genus Dietyonema and allied genera. Of these several new 

 forms have been discovered 1)y Col. Grant, which it is hoped will 

 shortly be described. Another series of specimens represent the 

 interesting sponges of the Hexactinellid type (found in the Niag- 

 ara limestone). They are preserved in silicious nodules, in this re- 

 sembling the more recent sponges of the chalk formation, many of 

 which belong to the same group. When polished many of them 

 show in a beautiful manner the star-like spicules of these sponges 

 arranged in the most beautiful and intricate patterns. A few also 

 exhibit the internal forms. They belong to the genera Astylos- 

 pofigia or Aulocopina and some of them are probably new species. A 

 selection has been placed in the hands of the German Palaeontolo- 

 gist Zittel, who has promised to report on them. A very remark- 

 able discovery recently made in the Niagara limestone is that of 

 some fragments of a gigantic crustacean of the genus Pterygotus^ 

 comparable in size with the great Pterygotiis Afigliciis of the De- 

 vonian of Scotland. Though of much greater geological age, the 

 present is so far as known the first example of a large and well- 



