19 



"Description: — Fish, four diameters of its body long; head, obtuse or blunt, as if obHquely 

 compressed on upper and front part; whole length, 3 3-10 inches; width, in middle of body, 

 85-100 inch; fins, one dorsal, opposite anal, small triangular, 3-lOths of an inch at base, jointed 

 drooping, as if the fish was dead before it was enclosed in the mud, (now shale) . Anal, small, 

 triangular, a Uttle larger than dorsal; Pectoral, small, compressed into mass of scales of body of 

 the fish; Tail, bifurcated, unequal, very long, and tapering in upper division, which extends to a 

 fine point. The scales run down on upper division of tail, and become gradually smaller to tip; 

 caudal rays come exclusively from under side of upper, and form lower division of tail. Scales 

 of body brilliant, rhomboidal, wavy, serrated on posterior margins, colour light brown. This 

 fish is embalmed and not petrified. No ridge of bone is seen to indicate the vertebral column, 

 hence the bones must have been cartilaginous and compressible. The gill plates are too con- 

 fusedly compressed to be dissected. I cannot find in any published book any figure of a fossil 

 fish identical with this. It is evidently a Palseoniscus, and is probably a young individual, as 

 seems to be indicated by its small size, and the delicacy of its scales. We will name it, prov- 

 isionally, Palceoniscus Alberti, in commemoration of its being the first fossil fish discovered in 

 Albert county, in New Brunswick." 



Other specimens from the Albert mine, described by Jackson, but not named by him, are 

 shown in his figures 2, 2 bis and 3 of plate II, and belong to this species. His figures 5 and 8 

 of the same plate represent specimens of alberti from the same locality, not mentioned in the 

 text of his report. The original of figure 4, plate II, of which no mention is made in the text, 

 has not been seen by the writer, but it probably also is of this species. 



In the collections from the Albert shales of New Brunswick, belonging to the Geological 

 Survey, this species is the one most abundantly represented. It evidently swarmed in countless 

 numbers in the waters of its time. 



A careful study of the type and figured specimens of Jackson's Palceoniscus alberti, and of 

 the type of P. mirnsi, Jackson, has compelled the writer to believe that the latter is not speci- 

 fically distinct from the former. A supposed difference in the ornamentation of the flank scales 

 seems to have been relied on principally as a character denoting specific distinction. 



Dr. Jackson's description of Rhadinichthys cairnsi, to be found on the same page of the 1851 

 report as that of R. alberti, is as follows : — 



"Plate I, Fig. 3, represents a perfect fish of the genus Palgeoniscus which was found on 

 the 3rd of June last. In its general form and appearance it resembles the Palceoniscus Elegans, 

 of Prof. Sedgewick, (Lond. Geol. Trans., 2d series. Vol. iii, PI. 9, Fig. 1) and Agassiz, (Re- 

 cherches sur les Poissons Fossiles, Vol. ii. Tab. 10, Fig. 5.) but it differs from that species in the 

 striation of the scales, the striae of the Hillsboro' species being parallel to the anterior and lower 

 margins of the scales, and the shape of the scales differing essentially from Mr. Sedgewick's 

 species. 



"Description.— Fish, long and slender, 4 1-2 diameters of its body long; length of head, a 

 little less than the largest diameter of the body; the head has the shape of an equilateral spherical 

 triangle; tip of nose, or snout curiously tuberculated and dotted; gill plates cannot be dissected, 



