1886.) An Interesting Connecting Genus of Chordata. 1027 
It is to be remembered that in the great mound of the group 
of altar mounds there was a layer of gravel two or three inches 
thick, which we have called the concrete layer. This gravel was 
cemented by a large amount of iron, and it has been a puzzle 
where the iron came from. It was far too great in amount to 
have been derived from the clay in the mound above, and be- 
sides, the gravel of the same layer, about the edges, was loose 
and light without any mixture of iron. Now this iron gravel 
from the burial place is of the same character as that forming the 
concrete layer in the mound, and it therefore seems probable that 
these pits must have been dug for the purpose of obtaining it. 
As this gravel had been used during the extensive ceremonies 
which must have taken place at the time the mound was con- 
structed, the very place from which it was taken seems to have 
been held sacred and the pits therefore filled with burnt material, 
covered over and marked in the same manner as some of the 
graves. This again is further evidence of the connection of the 
burial place and the ceremonies which took place there with the 
altar mounds, The more we examine into the details of this 
wonderful group of ancient works, the more interesting and in- 
Structive they become. We have already spread before us the 
outlines of a grand picture of the singular ceremonies connected 
with the religious and mortuary customs of a strange people. 
There are still some touches to be given before the picture is 
complete, but it is more perfect than any other that has been 
drawn, and as our work goes on we may yet be able to fill it out, 
and finally present it as a perfect whole.— The Boston Herald. 
3 
"ry? 
We 
AN INTERESTING CONNECTING GENUS OF 
CHORDATA. 
BY E. D. COPE. 
F is well known that the only orifice in the cranial parts of the 
carapace in those so-called fishes of the Old Red sandstone, 
s Pterichthys and Bothriolepis, is single and median, and is trans- 
= Versely placed, so as to cover the space occupied by the orbits 
_ and the interorbital region in such Vertebrata as have the eyes 
_ Superior and close together. In the genus Cephalaspis, which 
has been also supposed to bea fish, two orbits and an interspace 
a ete about the Saari: po in the cranial buckler. 
