Miscella7iies. 201 



4. Fossil Fishes in Virginia ; from William C. Redfield. — William 

 Kemble, Esq., of this city, has kindly placed in my hands a fragment of 

 shale containing beautiful impressions of fishes, of which portions of 

 twenty individuals can be made out on one side of the fragment, the size 

 of which does not exceed twelve by eight inches. It was brought to this 

 city by Mr. George B. Cook, from the Virginia coal region, thirteen miles 

 west of Richmond, and was obtained a few days since, about two hundred 

 feet below the surface, and beneath one hundred and eighty feet of rock, 

 in a new shaft which is excavating in quest of coal. All the impressions 

 appear to belong to a single species, are four or five inches in length, and 

 nearly resemble the Catopterus gracilis described in the fourth volume of 

 the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History. 



New York, April 6, 1838. 



5. Analysis of the scales of the fossil Gavial of Caen, in Normandy ; 

 by A. CoNNELL, Esq., F. R. S. E., &c., in the Ed. New Phil. Jour. No. 46. 



Mr. Connell found the constituents of the Caen scales to be as follows : 



Phosphate of lime, with a little fluoride of calcium, 78.59 



Carbonate of lime, . . . . 12.53 



Sulphate of lime, . - - - 1.96 



Phosphate of magnesia, - - - .11 



Chlorides of potassium and sodium, - - .74 



Oxide of manganese, - - - - .45 



Siliceous matter, - . . . .37 



Water, - - - - - 5.07 



99.82 



The author, firom the above analysis, concludes that these scales were 

 originally of the nature of bone, and in all probability analogous to the 

 osseous scales of fishes ; and hence the presence or absence of bone-earth 

 in such fossil relics can be of no service in determining whether they had 

 belonged to saurian animals or to fishes, as he at one time, from the usua 

 views of chemists respecting the nature of recent saurian scales, had 

 thought might have been the case. 



6. Interesting Fossils found in Louisiana. — The following is an ex- 

 tract of a letter to the Editor, from W. M. Carpenter, A. M., M. D., 

 dated Jackson, La., Feb. 6, 1838. The fossils herein described were 

 found in the parish of West Feliciana, about 25 miles from this place, on 

 a small stream which is called Little Bayou Sara, in a part of the country 

 whose geology is different from the greater part of Louisiana, in not be- 

 longing to the delta formation. This formation runs from the lower part 

 of Alabama across the lower part of Mississippi westward, until it strikes 

 Lake Ponchartrain, continues around the eastern shores of this lake, and 



Vol. XXXIV.— No. 1. 26 



