Mafinesque on a fossil Medusa. 285 



FOSSIL ZOOLOGY. 



New-Yorh, llth mo. 2lst, 1820. 



BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



Respected Friend — At the request of C. S. Rafinesque, 

 I take the liberty of forwarding his description of a suppos- 

 ed fossil medusa, contained in a paper sent by him to the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia some time 

 ago. The paper by some accident got mislaid, or it should 

 have been forwarded long before. 



I remain with best wishes, and sincere respect, 

 Thy friend. 



REUBEN HAINES. 



Art. VIII. — Description of a fossil Medusa, forming a 

 new genus. Trianisites ClifFordi, by C. S. Rafi- 



NES^UE.* 



The genus Medusa of Linneus is now become, by the 

 multiplied observations and discoveries of many zoologists, 

 an extensive tribe of animals, containing a great many gene- 

 ra and more than two hundred species. I have myself dis- 

 covered in Sicily and in the Atlantic ocean many new ones, 

 which are partly enumerated in my former works, and I 

 mean to describe now a fossil one, which has been discov- 

 ered in Kentucky, by my worthy friend John D. Clifford of 

 Lexington, in whose collection I have seen it. I believe 

 that this is the first instance (at least in the United States) 

 of an animal of that tribe being found in such a fossil state, 

 and I do not at present remember any author's mentioning 

 any species found fossil in Europe. This may therefore be 

 entirely a new discovery, to which we are indebted to the 

 unwearied researches of Mr. Clifford; the only merit I claim 

 is of having ascertained that his specimen does not belong 

 to any known genus, and is therefore an extinct one. It is 



* Now Professor of Botany and Natural History in Transylvania Univer- 

 sity, Kentucky. 



