Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 35.djvu/625

Rh and this is the only record of its existence in the Maltese strata. The specimen was, perhaps, from the Calcareous Sandstone.

, Agassiz.

Several specimens discovered by me in the Calcareous Sandstone of Malta were subsequently determined by the late Dr. S. P. Woodward, F.G.S. They were of the pear-shaped outline, with a process and small indentation on one side, representing the concretionary appendage of the vertebræ and ribs, like the specimens common in the Red Crag.

This group is represented by teeth varying much in dimensions. It is one of the few vertebrates hitherto discovered in the Upper Limestone, where, doubtless, there are more than one species. Teeth are not uncommon in the Calcareous Sandstone, but chiefly in the nodule seams; whilst unusually large specimens indicate very large globe fishes in the Lower Limestone.

This genus is well dispersed throughout all the beds, and was evidently represented by several distinct forms. Teeth of a species not distinguishable from those of S. gigas, Pictet, are rather common in the Sand bed. I have seen impressions of the greater portions of the skeleton of a fish of the type of Sphærodus in the Calcareous Sandstone, where the smaller teeth are occasionally found. I quite anticipate that the future will show a large addition to the Pycnodont fishes of the Maltese Miocene beds.

The question whether the stratified seams of nodules and the lumps of yellow clay with pholad-borings met with in the Marl together with other adventitious materials and their associated animal remains belong to the same period as the beds in which they are found, seems to me scarcely to admit of a positive answer at present.

The lumps of ochreous-coloured clay met with in masses several inches in circumference are very irregularly dispersed throughout the Marl, and seem to have been derived from the degradation of older beds. The hardened nodules of the Calcareous Sandstone with particles of Sharks teeth and tests of Echinidæ and Mollusca found in their interior, together with the abundant animal remains associated with them, might point to their redeposition. But a very large number of the species found in the nodule-seams are also dispersed throughout the beds in situations where their appearance indicates a tranquil deposition, as further shown by the entire skeletons of fishes &c. found along with them. At the same time the Mastodon, Halitherium, Squalodon, and Delphinus, more or less met with in all excepting the Upper Limestone, seem to preserve the Miocene facies both for the nodule seams and the respective beds in which the remains are found.