BEEDE: new fossils from the KANSAS COAL MEASURES I2g 



and the young ones seem to have been rolled about until they had 

 gained some considerable size as the pores are about equally de- 

 veloped all over tliem and they are globular in form. Wherever 

 these animals were very abundant, as is generally the case wherever 

 they are found, they soon come in contact with each other and form 

 a solid mass, sometimes appearing to coalesce, but generally in 

 breaking they. part along the line of contact and neither specimen 

 seems to be ruptured. As yet spicules have not been positively 

 made out. There seem to be no siliceous spicules and several thin 

 sections have failed to show any calcareous ones. The absence of 

 siliceous spicules and chert in the specimens, and the absence of 

 chert in the rock, makes it practically certain that they are calca- 

 reous sponges, unless they are horny, and the fact that the lime- 

 stone is mostly made up of them practically precludes that idea. 

 There is, however, on weathered specimens, where the dermal 

 layer has been removed, a peculiar, more or less haphazard ar- 

 rangement of pits surrounded by elevations which may be caused 

 by an internal calcareous skeleton, composed of fused spicules. 

 One of the more regular of these surfaces is figured on Plate 

 XXXIII, Fig. lo. The different individuals vary from half an inch 

 to a foot or more in diameter, but seldom are more than six inches 

 high. 



They are found in abundance in the northwestern part of Atchi- 

 son, western Doniphan and eastern Brown counties. It is not 

 uncommon to find them making up a stratum of limestone six 

 inches thick. They seem to be confined to a single, narrow hori- 

 zon in the Burlingame shales. The cloaca is generally filled with 

 limestone which, except at the center, is arranged in concentric 

 layers as it was filtered in, giving the cloaca and the parts imme- 

 diately surrounding it much the appearance of a concretion. 



This sponge evidently belongs to the Fharetrones, and appears 

 most closely related to Cyronella and Stellispongia. It differs from 

 the former in not having the cloaca funnel-shaped and the fact that 

 the cloaca does not terminate below in vertical branching tubes any 

 more than it does above, and possesses no distinct exhalent ap- 

 erture. It is much more closely related to the latter, but is simple, 

 and appears quite different in its spicules, while the cloaca is con- 

 fined to the base. It may be an antecedent of that genus. 



The shales in which they are found abound elsewhere in typical 

 marine Coal Measures fossils and are immediately associated with 

 Lingida, Frodiictits and a few pelecypods and gastropods. Asso- 

 ciated with them also were a large quantity of dipnoan fish re- 



