1847.] BROWN ON GYPSIFEROUS STRATA IN NOVA SCOTIA. 257 



paint ; where this was removed, it appeared rough, almost like shagreen. 

 My attention was however particularly drawn towards the smaller spe- 

 cimens, each of which was enveloped in a sac (fig. 1), an appearance 

 which I had never before noticed in connexion with these remains. 

 This sac was of an oval form, about twice the diameter of the enclosed 

 Orthoceratite, enveloped its whole length, was like it flattened, 

 and had a longitudinal depression through its entire length. Upon 

 seeing it, the idea was at once suggested that here was a solution 

 of the question, never before determined, with regard to the form and 

 texture of the body of the Orthoceratite. Though very widely dis- 

 tributed through various strata, yet the soft parts have been so com- 

 pletely destroyed by time and circumstances, that no discovery of 

 them had been hitherto made, by which even a surmise could be 

 formed of the organization of the animal. The straight chambers and 

 siphuncular apparatus of the Orthocera were common enough, but 

 conjecture was at fault while endeavouring to form a correct idea of 

 the associated body. Indeed I have heard it asserted by some, that 

 the parts usually seen, with perhaps the addition of some kind of a 

 head, constituted its whole organization. From the present discovery 

 we may reasonably suppose they were furnished with a fleshy body, 

 Hke the Sepia of the present day and its kindred cephalopods, or 

 perhaps like the Belemnite of the antediluvian creation with its accom- 

 panying ink-bag. If they were provided with this latter apparatus, 

 might not the black coating so common upon them be a deposit from 

 that dark liquor ? I leave however all such speculations to those better 

 acquainted with the subject, contenting mySfelf with a simple state- 

 ment of the circumstances attending the discovery, and of the im- 

 pressions which that discovery made upon my mind. 

 I am, very respectfully, your friend, 



John G. Anthony. 



Having compared, when at Cincinnati, the three specimens, por- 

 tions of which are conjectured by Mr. Anthony to have possibly some 

 reference to the soft parts of the Orthoceras, I saw so much resem- 

 blance in them all, that I could not but suspect that they have some 

 connexion with the fossil, and are not of a concretionary nature, formed 

 by mud collecting round the shell. Other undoubted casts and im- 

 pressions in the same clay confirmed the opinion. 



C. Lyell. 



February 1847. 



3. On the Gypsiferous Strata of Cape Dauphin, in the Island of 

 Cape Breton. By Mr. Richard Brown. 



Previously to Mr. Lyell' s visit to Nova Scotia in the year 1843, it 

 was generally supposed that the marls and sandstones containing 

 those remarkable beds of gypsum, which have recently occupied so 

 much attention, were both in age and position analogous to the new 

 red sandstone of Europe. Such indeed was my own opinion (as 

 stated in an imperfect outline of the geological structure of this island 

 which appeared in Haliburton's ' History of Nova Scotia,' published in 



