1869.] -^^^ [Cope. 



Sphagepcea aciculata, gen. ot sp. nov. 



Char. gen. This genns is represented by a slender, acute spine, which 

 may be referred either to a Pycnodont or Chimaeroid family. It is nearly 

 straight and slender, and with a thin projecting anterior margin, which is 

 deeply notched from the tip to a short distance above the base, so as to 

 produce an acute dentition. There are no teeth behind, but two promi- 

 nent ridges separated by a deep groove. Sides of the spine longitvidinally 

 grooved. 



This spine may possibly be referable to a Plectognath fish. It resembles 

 the spine figured by Dixon (Geol. Sussex XXXII. 7) as belonging to Mi- 

 crodon nuchalis, a Pycnodont. Agassiz, in the Poisson Fossiles, does 

 not ascribe any such species of this family, and says that in Pycnodus 

 the dorsal spines are quite low. 



CJiar. specif. General form much compressed, but the section of the 

 edentulons portion is as broad as deep. Sides with two elevated ridges, 

 of which the anterior only is continued to near the tip, and is gradually 

 broken into a series of tubercles near the base. Length 5.5 lines ; great- 

 est width .75 line. This delicate remnant was discovered by my friend 

 Thomas Kite, a naturalist of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the cretaceoiis green 

 sand of the uj)per bed at the pits of the Pemberton Marl Company, Bir- 

 mingham, N. J. 



Sphyr^na carinata, Cope, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. PMla. 1868, 92. 



Founded on a shed example of one of the long teeth, taken from the 

 matrix attached to the dorsal vertebras of the Elasmosaurus platyurus. 

 The tooth is not very different in outline from that of the S. speciosa 

 Leidy, i. e., sub-triangular, and no more than tAvice as long as wide at 

 the base. The anterior margin is the more oblique, and its smooth 

 face is margined by a faint line posteriorly, and is continued over the ex- 

 tremity, forming a short obtuse barb on the posterior face. The obtuse 

 face of the tooth behind, sculptured with six or eight deep grooves, which 

 are separated by acute ridges, which do not extend over more than half 

 the length of the tooth. Length a little less than six lines. 



From the upper cretaceous of the neighborhood of Fort Wallace, Kan- 

 sas. 



Enchodus pressidens. Cope. 



This species is similar in size to the E. ferox Morton (Leidy Pr. A. N. 

 Sci. 1855, 397) but differs in the form of the premaxillary bone, and the 

 large tooth which it supports. The basis of the latter is compressed at 

 the base transversely to the axis of the premaxillary bone, so that it has 

 a crescentic section, the concavity backwards. At the middle of the 

 tooth, the section is an equilateral triangle, with an angle (one cutting 

 edgej anteriorly, the inner angle rounded. The plane face of the tooth is 

 thus much reduced in width, and is narrower at the basis than at the 

 middle of the crown. There is moreover a longitudinal groove just in 

 front of the posterior (outer) cutting edge. There is another groove on 

 the other side of the same edge, on the posterior face, and anotlier more 

 marked just inside the anterior cutting edge. In all these points it dif- 



