392 



Appendix ii. 



Note on a new Species of CHiETETES. 



By Fredk. Chapman, A.L.8., F.R.M.S., Palaeontologist to the 



National Museum, Melbourne. 



(Plate xlii.) 



Introduction. 



The genus CJuptetes, founded by Fischer in 1837,* is almost 



entirely confined to the Carboniferous. Nicholson, in liis 



'•Tabulate Corals of the Palaeozoic Period,*'! says "The species 



of ChfHetes as here defined, are not known to occur out of the 



Carboniferous (and possibly the Devonian) rocks,'' but he does 



not specify any occurrence from the latter system. Zittel states 



that the genus is also found in the Lias and Upper Jurassic; 



It is, therefore, deeply interesting to find an Australian species 

 of the C. radians type in the f^oomberah Limestone,§ which, if 

 Dr. Benson's final conclusions bear out his preliminary investi- 

 gations, belongs to the upper part of the Middle Devonian. The 

 peculiar habit of the corallites in this genus, in showing partial 

 fission of some of the calices by imperfect partitions which are 

 tooth-like projections in horizontal section, is well shown in the 

 present species. Further, it is important to note that our species 

 shows the presence of a dark line in the septal wall, notwith- 

 standing its supposed absence from that of C. radians.\\ 



* Oryet. de Gouv. de ^Sloscou, p. 159. 

 t London, 1879, p. 266. 



::: See Zittel. Traite de Paleontologie, 1888, Vol. i., Pt. i., p. 628. Also 

 Eastman-Zittel, Text-book of Paleontologj-, Vol. i., 1918, p. 118. 

 § See Proc. Linn. Soe. N. 8. Wales, 1915, xl., Pt.8, pp.546, 549, and 559. 



I Eastman-Zittel says {op. cit., pp. 117) — " Walls thoroughly amalga- 

 mated, common to adjacent corallites.*' Nicholson [op. cit., p.263) says 

 '• Rough fractures (generally, but not always) expose the interior of the 

 tubes; and thin sections, whether transverse or longitudinal, show that 

 the walls of contiguous corallites are entirelj' and undistinguishabl^- amal- 

 gamated or fused with one another, the originallj' duplex character of the 

 partition between neighbouring corallites being in no case recognisable." 



