Mr. W. Lonsdale on the Genus Litliostrotion . 453 



Lithostrotion was regarded by De Blainville* as only a section 

 (A) of Columnuria, characterized by " cellules avec un axe solide au 

 centre des rayons;'' and he included in it Lith. {Column.) stria- 

 tum as well as L. {Col.) floriforme, referring in the former species 

 to Fleming, Lhwyd, and Parkinson; and in the latter to Martin. 

 The next authority, known to the compiler of this notice, is Mr. 

 J. Phillipsf, who represents and describes a Yorkshire and Welch 

 coral under the term Cyathophyllum basaltiforme ; and he iden- 

 tifies it with the L. striatum of Parkinson and Fleming. It is 

 stated to be composed of adherent prismatic or pyramidal tubes, 

 striated longitudinally and undulated transversely; to have thirty- 

 six to fifty lamella?, u the marginal lamella? commencing within a 

 thin crenulated vertical dissepiment/'' No mention is made of an 

 axis great or little ; on the contrary, an enlarged, transverse sec- 

 tion (fig. 22) exhibits a direct centre of twisted lamella?— a struc- 

 ture opposed to Dr. Fleming's "small, solid, central axis;" and 

 nothing like Parkinson's u prominent star, one-third of the dia- 

 meter of the (terminal) concavity arising out of its centre " (Org. 

 Hem. ii. 44), is expressed in what appear to be tolerably pre- 

 served centres (Geol. Yorks. tab. 2. f. 21). Lieut. -Col. Portlock, 

 in his f Report on the Geology of the County of Londonderry/ &c. 

 (1813), notices a carboniferous fossil to which is applied the 

 designation Astrea basaltiformis (p. 333), and it is considered 

 equivalent to Cyath. basaltiforme (Phillips), Columnaria sulcata 

 (Goldfuss), and Lithostr. striatum (Fleming). The "mass" of 

 which a specimen consists is stated to be readily fractured; 

 and the long, slightly undulating prismatic tubes, resembling 

 basaltie columns in miniature, are transversely undulated and 

 longitudinally striated {op. cit. p. 333), and under Ast. hexagona 

 it is said to have a conical, twisted umbo (p. 332). Prof. M'Coy 

 also includes in Mr. Griffiths' s { work on the Carboniferous Fos- 

 sils of Ireland Lithostr. striatum (Parkinson), citing Cyath. basal- 

 tiforme of Mr. Phillips, whose characters are nearly adopted. 

 The above particulars have been given to show that among the 

 mountain limestone Zoantharia of England, three composed of 

 basaltiform columns had been described by Parkinson, Dr. Fle- 

 ming, and Mr. J. Phillips previously to 1845, but each so far 

 as known distinguished by peculiarities of structure ; and it is 

 believed that a due consideration of their detailed characters will 

 raise a doubt, whether any one of them can be truly referred to 



* Manuel d'Actinologie, p. 350, Atlas, pi. 52. fig. 3, 1830-34 ; see also 

 Lamarck's Anim. s. Vert. ed. 183(5, t. ii. p. 343. 



f Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire, Part 2. p. 202. pi 2. tigs. 21 , 

 22, 1836. 



t A Synopsis of the Characters of the Carboniferous Limestone Fossils 

 of Ireland, p. 188, 1844. Printed for private distribution. 



