Description of two Species of Scutella.
BY AUGUSTE RÉMOND.
Scutella Lam.
S. Gibbsii Rémond.
Disk oblong-sub-oval, rounded before and truncated behind, posteriorly convex above, slightly depressed in front; inferior surface flat, somewhat concave about the mouth. Apex about midway between the center and posterior margin; ambulacral star non-symmetrical; petals unequal, open at their extremities. Anterior petal straight, longer than the others; the lateral ones nearly straight, diverging from the apex with an angle of about eighty degrees; posterior petals very short, sub-oval, having the anterior side most curved. Four rows of pores in each petal; the inner pores transverse, the outer ones pointed obliquely inwards. Mouth posteriorly sub-central; anal-aperture small, submarginal. Ambulacral furrows double, nearly symmetrical, slightly ramified. Each ambulacral and inter-ambulacral space is occupied by two rows of irregular plates, either pentagonal or hexagonal. Tubercles numerous, crowded in the ambulacral furrows, but much worn off in the specimens examined.
Locality: Kern Lake, Buena Vista County.
The specimens described are in the collection of the Academy; they were found by Dr. Gibbs, to whom the species is dedicated.
Obs.—This species, considered by Mr. Gabb as of probably miocene age, is closely allied to the S. striatula, which is found living on the Californian coast, and occurs fossil in the faluns (miocene formation) of Bordeaux, France; but it differs from it in the outlines and the size of the shell, the former being comparatively small and longer than broad, while the latter is broader than long. Besides, the apex of the S. Gibbsii is situated more posteriorly, and the lateral petals, in the S. striatula, diverge from the apex, with an angle of from one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifteen degrees; this latter has also its ambulacral furrows more ramified at their extremities.
S. interlineata W. P. Blake.
Disk sub-circular, broad, upper surface convex towards the middle, depressed on the margins, plane beneath; apex central; ambulacral star symmetrical; petals long, equal, closed at their extremities, nearly reaching from the apex to the margin of the shell, terminated by five or six irregular hexagonal plates. The petals are longitudinally divided into four rows, which are connected by numerous and regular transverse lines of pores. Mouth central; anus submarginal; ambulacral furrows symmetrical, not much ramified. Inter-ambulacral areas occupied by two rows of pentagonal plates, convex, of equal length, increasing in size until they unite with the ambulacral plates; hexagonal from that point and decreasing towards the margin.
Two sorts of appendages; spinous processes numerous and crowded, above and beneath. Spines of the superior surface short, striated, pyriform, irregularly pentagonal or hexagonal; inferior spines slender, comparatively long, dentaliform, striated longitudinally, tubular and round.
Obs.—Water-worn fragments of this fine fossil occur in abundance on the beach, between Merced Lake and the Pacific, south of Point Lobos, in San Francisco County. It was made known to science by Mr. W. P. Blake, Geologist of the Railroad Survey, who found it in 1853, among the shingles thrown up by the surf, and first described by Mr. W. Stimpson. At that time the locality whence the scutellæ were derived had not been discovered, so that the specimens obtained being imperfect, no complete description could be made; this is the reason why I offer a new and complete description of the Scutella interlineata, from specimens procured in situ. As was suggested by Mr. W. P. Blake, the rocks bearing these fossils are found a few miles southward, north of the boundary line between San Mateo and San Francisco Counties, where the scutellæ stick out from conglomeratic sandstones, which Mr. Gabb considers as belonging to the pliocene or post-pliocene formation; we find them in a fine state of preservation, with their spines retained.
The S. interlineata is figured in the Railroad Reports; see vol. V, Geological Report, plate IV, fig. 30; and for Mr. Blake’s remarks and Mr. Stimpson’s description, the same Report, chap. XII, p. 153.
Dr. J. Blake made some remarks on specimens, presented by him, of infusoria, found in the sand-hills, south of Point Lobos, and which form a kind of concretions, fixing the sand in its place.
Dr. Ayres made the following remarks in relation to the genus Notorhynchus:
This genus was defined by me in 1855 (Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci., vol. I, p. 72) to include a species occurring in the Bay of San Francisco. In 1858 Girard refers to the species (P. R. R. Rep., vol. X, p. 367) under the generic name Heptanchus, of which he considers Notorhynchus a synonym. In 1861, Mr. Gill refers it to Rafinesque’s genus Heptranchias. (Annals of the Lyc. Nat. Hist., N. Y., vol. VIII, Dec.) In a more recent paper (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phil., Oct., 1862) Mr. Gill restores my species to the name under which it was originally described. He says: “This generic name of Notorhynchus was proposed by Dr. Ayres under a misapprehension.” My “misapprehension” was that I regarded the species as the type of a new genus; a conclusion at which Mr. Gill himself has, after several changes, also arrived. He gives as a synonym of Notorhynchus only “Heptanchus, Sp. Müller and Henle, Gray, Girard, Gill,” whereas it is necessary to include also “Heptranchias, Gill,” as above indicated.
I may remark that the description given by Mr. Gill of the teeth of Notorhynchus maculatus, (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phil., Oct., 1862, p. 495) will not bear examination. It represents the individual specimen on which it was founded; but the species is quite common here, and I find that the number and the forms of the teeth vary so much, that my original description, which Mr. Gill says is “equally applicable to any species of the family,” is fully as close as nature will allow us to draw. I am at a loss to understand how it is possible for him to refer the jaws of a shark, collected at a point so far removed from us as Nisqually, to my species, when my description is so extremely indefinite.
Professor Whitney gave an account of an interesting collection of Japanese minerals and fossils, in the possession of J. H. Van Reed, Esq., of this city.
This collection comprises over one thousand specimens of rocks, ores, fossils, and miscellaneous objects of natural history. It is supposed that they are chiefly of Japanese origin; but, as there is among them a fragment of a Dutch tobacco-pipe, carefully labeled, there may be other objects in the collection from foreign countries. The articles are all labeled, in the Japanese language: they are carefully fastened to the cases in which they are arranged, with exquisite Japanese neatness. The small crystals are inclosed in glass receptacles, having nearly the form of two large watch-crystals, attached to each other by the edges.
In the general character of the specimens in this collection, a singular resemblance was noticed to the productions of California, especially in the fossils and silicified woods, of which latter there are a number of beautiful specimens. There are several bivalve shells of pliocene or miocene tertiary age, and some casts of gasteropods, exquisitely formed in chalcedony. A number of sharks’ teeth, of the genus Lamna, were also noticed. Among the fossils is a single shell of palæozoic age, a Spirifer; it is not impossible, however, that this may have been carried from China to Japan; at all events, a Spirifer from that country resembling this, and of Devonian age, has been described in the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London.
There are quite a number of specimens of copper ore in the collection; they are all of the common yellow sulphuret, (chalcopyrite) except one or two of erubescite. This would indicate that the principal ore of this metal in Japan, as in other countries, is the sulphuret of copper and iron.
Native gold in quartz is also present in the collection; but no ores of silver were noticed, except one specimen of steel-grained galena, which is probably argentiferous. There are several specimens of realgar. Among the other minerals noticed were: calcite, adularia, chalybite, in the form of flos ferri, garnets, small crystals of pyroxene, crystals of mica, pectolite, and another zeolitic mineral resembling Thomsonite, as also native sulphur, obsidian, and a variety of volcanic rocks and lavas.
The collection is quite interesting, and would be more so if the labels could be read. The principal inference to be drawn from it, is the predominance of volcanic formations, and of the later tertiary strata, in the region in which this collection was made.
Dr. Ayres called attention to a remarkable turtle, in the possession of Mr. Van Reed, known as the “Sacred Turtle” of the Japanese. It is a species of Emys, closely allied to E. terrapin. Its marked peculiarity is, that its back is covered by a growth of conferva, which is often several inches long, and which gives the animal its sacred character among the Japanese, who believe this growth to be hair. The species is allied to C. rivularis; but the cells are more elongated. Dr. Ayres stated that he had observed a growth of conferva on various aquatic and amphibious animals in New England, and that, in these, it was always attended by disease, with more or less ulcerated at the roots. He was satisfied that this was always the case with fishes exhibiting this growth. The turtle in question, however, does not show any evidence of disease.
Dr. Ayres made some further remarks on the similarity of the fishes of Mr. Van Reed’s collection to species found in California.
Mr. Gabb noticed a resemblance in the fossils to those of this State.