HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSS J P. 



271 



Hastings. R. Leonard Hawkins, Hillside, Cornwallis 

 Gardens. Fresh-water Alga ; will gratuitously 

 mount slides, i.e., one of a specimen ; correspondent 

 to furnish material. 



Westmoreland. 

 Kendal. J. S. Metcalfe, 55 Highgate. Botany, 

 Ornithology. 



Worcestershire. 



Hales Owen, 7 miles by rail from Birmingham. 

 George T. Harris, Spring Villa. Botany. 



Malvern Link. R. F. Towndrow, 2 Commercial 

 Buildings. Botany, Entomology. 



North Malvern. Arthur D. Melvin, Ashford Cottage. 

 Botany. 



Yorkshire. 



Saltaire, 3 miles by rail from Bradford. Henry T. 

 Soppitt, 2 Bromley Street. Botany. 



Scarborough. George Massee, Biological Laboratory, 

 Oak House, Oak Road. Flowering Plants, Micro- 

 scopic Fungi, 



Selby, I2§ miles by rail S. of York. W. N. Cheesman, 

 Hon. Sec. Selby Nat. Soc, The Crescent. Botany, 

 Microscopy. 



Sheffield (2 miles from), George Robert Yine, 112 

 Hill Top, Attercliffe. Recent and fossil Polyzoa, 

 Microscopic structure of coal plants. G. R. Vine, 

 Jun. (same address). Recent and fossil Foraminifera. 



Sheffield. James E. Westby, 42 Spooner Road, 

 Broomhill, Geology. Bernard Hobson, Tapton 

 Elms, Phanerogamic Botany ; will return specimens 

 if desired. 



Thirsk, 9 miles S.S.E. Northallerton. William Fog- 

 gitt, Market Place. Phanerogamous Plants. 



Wales. 

 Merionethshire, Dolgelly. Owen Reese, Meyrick 

 Square. Geology. 



Scotland. 

 "Co. Roxburgh, Kelso. Andrew Brotherston, Shedden 

 Park Road. Botany. 



Ireland. 



Co. Antrim, Belfast. Thomas Workman, Bedford 

 Street. Spiders. 



Co. Clare. Gortaclare, Burren (nearest station Gort, 

 Co. Galway), Terence McGann. Botany, Micro- 

 scopy, mounts slides, supplies micro material, algae 

 and living plants on exchange, &c. 



■Co. Dublin. Lucan, 6f miles by rail from Dublin. 

 Joseph Edward Palmer. Ornithology. 



Southern Germany. 

 Baden-Baden. Max Leichtlin, proprietor of Botanic 



Garden, Station for introducing new and rare 



plants. 



A list of Entomologists by H. T. Stainton, F.R.S., 

 •occupies first fifty-five pages of "Entomologists' 

 Annual" for i860, pub. Van Voorst, 2s. 6<f. 



OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS, 

 WHERE TO FIND THEM. 



No. IX. 



AND 



By J. E. Taylor, Ph.D., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



PERHAPS no fossils have such a geological 

 value as corals. If the extinct species were 

 marked by the same habits as their modern repre- 

 sentatives (and in many cases the families of living 

 corals are so ancient, and the extinct forms glide so 

 imperceptibly into existing kinds that there is no 

 absolutely strongly-marked line of division), then 

 their value to the physical £r eo logist who endeavours 

 to restore the conditions of primeval seas is immense. 

 For coral-animals can only flourish where the sea- 

 water is clear, and therefore where no muddy sedi- 

 ments are forming. And coral-animals are easily 

 separable into two groups — the single and simply 

 compound corals, which are usually inhabitants of 

 deep water ; and the reef-building corals which 

 cannot live and flourish beyond the depth of twenty- 

 five fathoms. Moreover, coral reefs indicate to the 

 physical geographer slowly subsiding areas of the 

 sea-floor. They are also indicative of a certain 

 degree of ocean temperature, for we do not find 

 them where the sea-water is cooler than 62 , and 

 therefore the sub-tropical belts of our globe now 

 roughly comprehend their distribution. But we find 

 fossil corals simple, compound, and reef-building. 

 They are characteristic of many thick limestone for- 

 mations, from the Silurian upwards. We have fossil 

 reef-building corals where their modern represen- 

 tatives could not now live. What climatal changes 

 do not these valuable fossils indicate ! Not less 

 important are the condition of the ancient seas they 

 lay before us. We carry our minds back to when 

 coral islands, fringing-reefs, and barrier-reefs were 

 in British seas. These reefs also tell the geologist 

 of the adjacency of land, and inform him of the fact 

 that the sea-floor was in a state of subsidence. 



Moreover, few fossils are prettier, more easily 

 procurable, or look better in the cabinet, than corals. 

 They are found in nearly every limestone formation 

 which was originally deposited in the sea. No other 

 fossils can be so well studied, cut into sections and 

 examined under the microscope. And they are so 

 very abundant that the limestone walls in the hilly 

 districts where Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, or 

 Oolitic limestone crops up, are often composed of 

 little else than blocks of fossil coral. 



We are beginning to understand the true relation- 

 ship of living and extinct corals better than we did, 

 thanks to the labours of Dr. Sorby and Mr. H. N. 

 Mosely. Formerly these animals (classified chiefly 

 by the stony or limy parts they leave behind), 

 were all grouped among that order of the Actinozoa 

 called " Zoantharia," of which the common sea- 

 anemone is the type. The order "Zoantharia" 



