GENERAL HISTORY. 3 



to Montiadipora ; but as this certainly could not be definitely 

 settled by an appeal to Eichwald's figures and descriptions, 

 it would not be reasonable to allow this to supplant such 

 later and well-defined names as Nebtdipora, M'Coy. I shall 

 afterwards discuss the question as to whether or not Di~ 

 amdites, Eichw., has any claim to stand as a sub-genus of 

 Montictdipora. 



Since the establishment of M 'Coy's genus Nebtdipora, the 

 name Monticulipora^ D'Orb., has either been accepted as valid, 

 or the fossils generally grouped under this head have been 

 referred to Chcstetes, Fischer. 



The above are the most salient points in the earlier history 

 of Montiailipora as a genus ; but it may be advisable that I 

 should give here a more detailed account of the chief papers 

 and works which have dealt with this group of corals. In so 

 doing, however, I shall not pretend to give an absolutely 

 exhaustive bibliography; nor shall I, in general, notice memoirs 

 which are simply descriptive of species, unless there should be 

 some special reason to the contrary. My object, in fact, is 

 simply to record in order the principal accessions to our know- 

 ledge of the genus since it was first founded, and to discuss 

 briefly certain points which could not well be treated of except 

 in such a historical summary. 



Previous to the establishment of the genus Montiadipora by 

 D'Orbigny, such species as were then known to palaeontolo- 

 gists were placed under various genera. Thus, by 

 Pander (Beitrage zur Geogn. des Russ. Reiches, 

 1830), Goldfuss (Petref. Germ., 1833), Phillips (Geol. York- 

 shire, 1836), Lonsdale (in Murchison's Silurian System, 1839), 

 Portlock (Geol. Rep,, 1843), and De Koninck (An. Foss. des 

 Terr. Garb., 1842), they were, wholly or in great part, referred 

 to Calamopora or Favosites ; while other writers either followed 

 the same course, or referred them to genera equally remote 

 from their true position. Of these older works, the one prin- 

 cipally deserving of mention is Lonsdale's memoir in the 

 ' Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains' (Ap- 



