324 REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



XII. NOTE ON THE GENUS PALiEASTER AND OTHER FOSSIL STAR-FISHES, WITH 

 DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME NEW SPECIES, AND OBSERVATIONS UPON THOSE 

 PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED. 



GENUS PAL^ASTER, Hall. 



In the second volume of the Palceontohgy of New York, page 247,* I 

 proposed the name Pal^aster to include a species from the Niagara 

 group, and one from the Hamilton group. I have subsequently referred 

 to the same genus a species from the Trenton limestone, which I previ- 

 ously published under the name of Asterias matutina. The original 

 specimen described under this name was in such a condition that the 

 ambulacral and adjacent plates could not be distinctly recognized, and 

 the upper side remained imbedded in stone. The generic description is 

 therefore very meagre, and the figure was intended to illustrate all that 

 could be seen. The species is thus described : 



"Body stellate; disc small; arms short, terete, with a deep avenue on the 

 lower side, which is margined by short strong spines ; centre of phites 

 (in the fossil) nearly smooth, margins strongly granulate ; lower side 

 of the arms showing two ranges of plates on each side of the avenue ; 

 the outer range composed of short hexagonal plates, with an inner range 

 of smaller ones alternating, the latter usually covered by tufts of spines ; 

 a large pentagonal plate inserted at the base of the arms, on the lower 

 side." 



I have distinctly recognized the two ranges, marginal and adambulacral 

 plates ; but the inner ones are not shown in the figure as they should 

 have been, while the large plate at the axil of the ray (though the 

 adjacent small oral plates of the inner range are not seen) is evidently 

 part of an incomplete series, and clearly belongs to the marginal range. 



In 1856,1 Mr. Salter adopted the name Pal^easter for fossil star-fishes 

 without disc and having deep avenues, etc. 



* This volume was printed in 1850, but was published in 1852. 

 t Proceedings of the British dissociation, August, 1856. 



[Originally pubUshed December, 1866.] 



