266 W. Pengelly, Esq. [May 26, 



Devonshire and Cornwall than have generally been recognised ; some 

 have never been described, whilst others have been regarded as corals. 

 In 1843, Mr. Peach brought certain fossils, which Mr. Couch had then 

 recently discovered at Polperro, in Cornwall, before the geological 

 section of the British Association, during its meeting at Cork : they 

 were pronounced to be ichthyolites ; and this was probably the more 

 readily believed from the fact that it was well known that the con- 

 temporary rocks of Scotland had yielded fossil fish in great numbers, 

 and there seemed no reason. for their non-appearance in Cornwall. 

 Mr. Peach traced these fossils from near Fowey harbour to Talland 

 sands, about two miles west of Looe. They were subsequently found 

 by the speaker along the entire south coast of Cornwall from Talland 

 to the Rame Head, on the banks of the river Fowey, at Bodrethen on 

 the north coast of Cornwall, and at Mudstone Bay, near Brixham, in 

 Devonshire. Specimens were sent to the late Mr. Hugh Miller, who 

 at first confirmed their ichthyic claims ; but subsequently, in a paper 

 read before the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, he doubted 

 *' whether their true place in the scale of being had been determined," 

 and pronounced them " the most puzzling things he had ever seen ; 

 riddles on which to exercise the ingenuity of the palaeontologist." 

 Soon afterwards. Professor M'^Coy declared them to be sponges 

 merely, established for them the new genus Steganodictyum, and 

 showed that they belong to two species, S. Cornuhicum and S. 

 Carteri, 



According to the authors of the Monograph on the subject, issued 

 by the Pal aeon tographical Society, the Devonian rocks of Devon and 

 Cornwall have yielded 49 species of fossil corals, belonging to 20 

 genera, 6 families, and 3 sub-orders : 3 of the species are also found in 

 Silurian rocks, but no carboniferous forms occur. 



Some of the species had a greater geographical range than others. 

 Favorites Goldfussi, for example, being found in Devonian rocks in 

 Britain, continental Europe, North America, and New South Wales, 

 being in fact the most decided cosmopolite amongst them ; whilst 

 Chonophyllum perfoliatum, like many others, appears to have been 

 confined to Britain. It seems tolerably safe to infer from this fact that 

 the former possessed hardier, more plastic, and (if the word is allow- 

 able), more adaptable constitutions than the latter ; and were more 

 capable of enduring such a variety of physical and thermal conditions, 

 as in the present phase of our planet's existence may be said almost 

 invariably to accompany removal to localities so widely separated as 

 Europe, America, and Australia. Nor would it, probably, be con- 

 sidered a very unwarrantable extension of the principle here involved, 

 to conclude that such species would be the least affected by the 

 thermal and physical changes, which we are not without reason for 

 believing considerable lapses of time have always produced in any 

 one and the same given area ; changes, not improl)ably, very much of 

 the same character obtaining in widely separated times in the same 

 locality, as in widely separated localities in the same time. Taking 



