FLORA OF rilK TRINITY FORMATION. 337 



toward our of tlic poles. At wliat may he regai'ded as tlH> j)fo\iinal 

 pole or stem end they lie on \hc sui'face. pfodiiciiiti; a fluted appearance 

 in the polai' depression oi' concavity. 



Rauff leaves the prol)lem of its true nature unsolved and proposes 

 no new name, hut he regards Mr. Hill's refei-ence of it to .Ai'aucarites or 

 to any conifei' as probably erroneous. He does not denv its possible 

 polyzoaii nature, but finds analogies with the pi'otozo.aii forms Recep- 

 taculites and Isohadites, which he had been studying. These possess 

 organs somewhat similai- to those that occupied the tubes of Poi'ocvstis, 

 and which he calls ntdials (rootlets). He admits the possibilitv of these 

 ol)jects representing calcareous alga\ The specimens studied bv Rauff 

 are in the museum of the University of Gottingen. 



I know of no study of this organism later than that of Rauff, but a 

 thorough search into the literature has l)i'ought to light a memoir in which 

 it was treated much earlier tlian any of the papers here noticed, viz. in 

 1853. Roemer does not mention it in any of his early works on the paleon- 

 tologA' of Texas, and seems not to have met with it, but a man named 

 Meusebach, who was probably one of the New Braunfels colonists, 

 collected fossils in that region and early sent specimens to the Mineralogical 

 Museum at Halle. Upon this collection C. G. Giebel published a report," 

 saying that it had long been in the museum. On page 375 he describes 

 S}i)ho)un f/Iohularis n. sp., and figures it on plate vii, figs. 3a, 3b. The 

 description and figures give no reason to doubt that they relate to the 

 organism in question. His fig. 3a is a view of one of the poles and shows 

 the radiating tubes, w'hile fig. 3b is a side view; and although these figures 

 are not clear like those of Rauff, and not magnified, they fairly represent 

 the average condition of these objects. He describes them as "spherical 

 bodies from a few^ lines to an inch in diameter, with a somewhat depressed 

 apex (Scheitel), the center of which is sunk to the depth of 2-4 lines into a 

 large circular basin. From this radiate irregulai-, close-pressed fui'rows, 

 scarcely reaching the margin, and passing into regularly arranged, thickly 

 crowded, round pores, which are separated by spaces about equal to their 

 diameters, though in the largest specimens they are smaller than their inter- 

 spaces. " He had before him 24 specimens, which he says strikingl)' 



" Boitrag zur PaKloiitologie dcs Tcxaiiisclieii KiiMdebirges, von C. G. Giebel: .lahresbeiicht des iiatunT. 

 V'ereines in Halle, FTinfter Jahrgaug, lS.i2, Berlin, 1853, pp. 358-375, pi. vi, vii. 

 MON xi.viii — 0.5 22 



