96 PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW JERSEY. 



ture rather large, obliquely elliptical with the outer side more rounded than 

 the inner; acute alcove and apparently so below; outer lip strongly crenu- 

 late within; inner lip coated with a, deposit, but not sufficiently heavy to 

 conceal the surface markings of the shell beneath it, which show through 

 and present somewhat the appearance of plaits; axis apparently slightly 

 perforated; surface marked by strong and deep vertical and spiral grooves 

 with sharp ridges between, which produce aspirate nodes by their intersec- 

 tion; eleven or twelve of the longitudinal ridges may be counted on the 

 inner half of the last volution and six of the spiral ridges aboAe the top of 

 the apertm-e. The upper two or three volutions appear to have been 

 smooth, or nearly so, as originally described. 



The type and only specimen which I have seen of this species has 

 been much mutilated, and that apparently since Mr. Com^ad's figure and 

 description of it were made. The spire has been broken and the upper 

 three volutions thrust down and into the cavity of the lower ones, so they 

 can be only partially seen. The aperture — at least the outer lip of it — has 

 also been somewhat damaged so that the crenulations on the inside are 

 scarcely seen. The feature described by Mr. Conrad as "labrum angulated 

 above the middle" is barely perceptible on the specimen, which is half 

 imbedded in micaceous clays. It appears to me to be a feature produced 

 by accidental crushing rather than a natural one, especially as there is not 

 the slightest evidence of any angulation on the opposite side of the body 

 volution or above; the base, however, seems to have been either angulated 

 or chamieled, but the conditions of the specimen will not allow of abso- 

 lute determination of this feature. If this shell really belongs to the Cancel- 

 lariidcF., it would, I think, properly fall under the genus Mercia H. and A. 

 Adams, and specifically is near M. (C.) ohlonga Kiener, as figured by Chenu.^ 

 In some respects, however, the specimen clos'ely resembles a Nassa like N. 

 (Tritia) trlvittata of ou.r own coast. The figure as given is restored as well 

 as it is possible to be done, the fragments being replaced as far as can be. 



Formation and locality: In dark colored micaceous clays below the 

 Lower Marls at Haddonfield, New Jersey. Collection Acad. Nat. Sci., 

 Phila. 



^ Manuel de Couch. Pal^ont., vol. 2, p. 277, Fig. 1847. 



