252 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



tios, and sometimes in quite large pieces, in the sands of the Ivalo 

 River, in Northern Lapland. Poc/gendorfs Annalen, No. 6, 1S70. 



Silver Ore in India. Argentiferous galena has been discovered 

 in the district of Beerbhoom, in India, by Mr. Ball, of the Geolog- 

 ical Survey. The assay of sojne picked specimens gives 110 oz. 

 silver to the ton of lead, and it is considered that there is a sufficient 

 quantity of ore to justify working. Nature. 



Australian Corals. The most interesting of the corals from 

 the Cainozoic deposits of South Australia are the Conosmilia3. 

 It is a genus perfectly Australian in its abnormalities. A simple 

 coral with a pellicular epitheca, having a beautiful herring-bone 

 ornamentation, with an essential, twisted, serialaire columella 

 with endothecal dissepiments and with plain septa, which have 

 the hexameral arrangement in some, and the octomeral in others, 

 is a form containing the elements of several classificatory series. 

 The irregular septal arrangement amongst the closely allied 

 species may be considered to depend upon atavism. Such octom- 

 eral cyclical arrangements occurred in some genera in the lower 

 greensand period and during the oolites. Some of the liassic 

 Montlivaltice clearly reflected this rugose peculiarity, and M. Ru- 

 perti (Duncan) had a quaternary cyclical arrangement. 



It is remarkable that the septo-costal peculiarity, already men- 

 tioned as occurring in the Australian Flabellum Victorice and in 

 the two species of Sphenotrochus, should be noticed in all the spe- 

 cies of Conosmilia. The continuation of the septa and costre is 

 likewise wanting in some liassic Montlivaltice and in many simple 

 Rugosa. The importance of the Conosmilige can hardly be esti- 

 mated at present ; but it is evident that they are very synthetic 

 forms, occurring late in the coral faunas of the world. The genus 

 Haplophyllia (Pourtales), whose solitary species were dredged in 

 32-i fathoms off the Florida reef, has a styliform columella and 

 an octomeral arrangement of the septa. There are no endothe- 

 cal dissepiments. Quar. Jour. Oeol. Soc. 



An Existing Coral allied to a Palaeozoic Type. Mr. W. S. 

 Kent, in the " Annals and Magazine of Natural History," describes 

 a specimen of coral of undoubted recent character, although of un- 

 known locality. From its generic resemblance to the extinct 

 genus Favosites he has named it Favositipora Deshayesii. Mr. 

 Kent has found in the British Museum a specimen of fossil coral 

 belonging to the same genus, and most probably of North Ameri- 

 can Devonian or Carboniferous origin. This second species is 

 named F. palceozoica. "Not only is the existing F. Desliayesii 

 interesting on account of its close relationship to extinct palaeo- 

 zoic forms, but its affinity to the recent genus Alveopora, from 

 which it differs only by its possession of scattered tabulee, is 

 weighty evidence in controversion of the theory advocated by 

 Professor Agassiz, that all the tabulate corals are the skeletal 

 productions of Hydrozoa. Alveopora is a well-known Actinozob'n, 

 and it is more than probable that the closely approximating Favo- 

 sitipo,ra is referable to the same class." 



Fossils of Nevada. F. B. Meek, in a letter in the Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, which ac- 



