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ever the future may have in store for us we cannot now predict ; but 

 at present the search for the actual ancestral form, though necessary, 

 is nevertheless not hopeful. We can, however, rely upon the facts 

 of embryology, and predict without fear of failure that, when our 

 knowledge makes this prototypical form known, it will have a de- 

 cided resemblance in structure and in aspect to the earlier stages of 

 the shell as observed in the fossil cephalopods." 



At the time this was written I had in my possession two fossils 

 which I had collected myself in the lowest Calciferous of Newfound- 



Fig. IS.— Nautilus pompihus. 

 [Contributed by Henry Brooks.] 



land. I was aware that they presented peculiar and apparently sep- 

 tate siphuncles, but in the field had supposed this to be due to an 

 accident that not infrequently happens, viz., the intrusion of Ortho* 

 ceratites of small size into the open upper parts of the large siphun- 

 cles of the Endoceras. When an opportunity finally arose, through 

 Dr. C. S. Minot, Secretary of the Thompson Science Fund, to 

 illustrate and publish these forms, I found that this was not the 

 case, but that their siphuncles were truly septate and completely 



