390 FOSSIL FISH. 



Pappenheim. They are, like those, skeletons almost complete, 

 couched flatly, and very seldom with scales. 



Le Brun, in his Voyages, tells us, that petrified fishes are 

 found in a mountain of Syria, at some leagues from Tripoli. 

 They are, very probably, the same as those of Mount Libanus. 



The islands of Malta and Sicily contain a considerable 

 quantity of the fossil teeth of fishes, and especially those of 

 squali. Impressions of fish are found at Melliti, near Syra- 

 cuse, in the Val di Noto. 



Shaw, in his Voyage to Barbary, tells us that, in different 

 parts of the coast there, fossil fish are found, but he gives us 

 no details concerning their locality. Barrere, also, in his 

 •' Observations on the Origin and Formation of Figured Stones," 

 tells us that, on the coast of Oran, certain limestones are to 

 be found, exactly expressing the figures of fishes. 



The ichthyolites of Iceland are in the midst of a sort of 

 marl, or hardened mud, of a bluish colour, usually forming 

 narrow and elongated masses. They are found in the bay of 

 Patriksfiord, where, it is said, this sort of fossils is every day 

 being produced. The entire skeleton, and often the greatest 

 part of the scales, are found in the centre of a kind of nodule, 

 which remains floating, or, at least, not adherent to the main 

 body of the muddy substratum. 



The lias at Lyme c/^n tains various remains of fish, and espe- 

 cially of what appears to have been defensive radii, as in the 

 balistes and palates. 



We insert figures of two of these fish from the " Geological 

 Transactions." The one has been named by Dr. Leach, Depe- 

 dium politum, from having rectangular scales, with a projec- 

 tion on one side, which fits into a groove in the opposite 

 scales. The other fish has not been named. 



We have now to speak of ichthyolites of fresh-water for- 

 mation. At Aix, in Provence, three-quarters of a league from 

 the town, is a plaster quarry thus composed : — 1st. a stratum, 

 many feet in thickness, of a schistose, or argillaceous marl, 



