PALEOZOIC FOSSILS. 285 



PaL.E ASTER GRANULOSA^ (n. S.). 



PLATE 

 Body of medium size, five rayed ; rays a little more than twice as long as 

 their breadth at base ; obtusely rounded at the extremities. Upper surface 

 of rays composed of numerous very small tuberculose or subspinose 

 plates : the madreporic tubercle large, quite distinct, situated late- 

 rally at the base of two of the rays. Under surface of rays composed of 

 a marginal range of small tuberculose plates, about twenty-five on each 

 side, in a ray measuring one inch and a quarter from base to apex ; and 

 an inner (adambulacral) range of smaller plates, of which about forty- 

 two or forty- three can be counted on the same ray ; the terminal or oral 

 plates are small, elongate, subtriangular, in pairs at the base of the adja- 

 cent rays. 

 Ambulacral areas composed of a double series of short, broad, slightly 

 curved poral plates (ossicula), each plate marked by a sharply elevated 

 ridge along its entire breadth, commencing on the one plate at the outer 

 posterior anj^le and terminating on the anterior inner angle, and running 

 in the opposite direction on the adjacent plate. When the outer ridged 

 surface of the poral plate is ground away, the narrow openings or porea 

 are visible between the plates, apparently in two rows in each series, 

 making four ranges of pVres in each ambulacral area. ( The marginal 

 ranges of pores are obscure, and may be only apparent.) 

 On the under surface near the bases of the rays the tubercles bear short 

 spines, some of which are still in place. 



This species difi'ers from P. shceferi in the form and proportions of 

 rays, the greater number of ambulacral plates, and the form and num- 

 ber of poral plates : the dorsal surface difi'ers in the numerous short sub- 

 spiniform appendages and absence of longer spines. 



Some figures of a Palaeaster, closely allied to or identical with this one, 

 from Cincinnati, Ohio, have been circulated by the Natural History Society 

 of that place, under the name of Asterias primordialis ; but no description 

 of it has ever been published, so far as I know, nor do I find it at all recog- 

 nized in the catalogues. 



Geological formation and locality. In shales of the Hudson-river group, 

 Lebanon, Ohio. From J. Kelly O'Neall, Esq. 



Paljeaster wilberanus. 



PLATE 



Petraster wilberanus : Meek & Worthen, Proceed, of the Acad, Nat, Scien. Phila- 

 delphia, p,142. 1861. 



The description informs us that "this beautiful starfish resembles rather 

 * closely Petraster rigidus of Billings ( Decade iii, Org. Rem. Canada, 



*See remarks upon this species at the end of this paper. 



