MALAY AKCHII'KLAIK) GONIOPOR^. 77 



It is thus seen that the differences between these corals are so great, that to class them 

 under one heading simply because of the similarity of growth means no more than that you 

 gi\'e a name to tlie type of growth. This name would have to be, according to rule, " G.Stohed." 

 Tliis is useful, but the help which it gives towards a natural classihcation is limited. 



46. Goniopora Java Sea (4)2. 



[Valley of the Tji-lanang (Gunung Sela), not far from Liotjitjangkang, Eongga District 



(Upper Miocene), ? Museum.] 



Litharcea affinis, Reuss, tJbei' foss. Korallen Java: Reise Osterr-Fregatte Novara, ii. (IS06) p. 175, 

 pi. ii. fig. 5«, h, <:. 



Description. — The corallum forms small mounds with convex surfaces. 



Calicles 4-.") mm. across, shallow, " polygonal " (circular in the figures). Walls liroad, 

 flat, rather closely reticular, smooth nodulated tkreads and somewhat jagged surface (" mit 

 spitzigen Hockerchen regellos besetzt "). Septa normally 24, of uniform thickness from the 

 periphery, ^^•avy, almost regiilarly fenestrated, and united by synapticulte so that the septal 

 apparatus often appears like a network with rounded meshes. The septal formula is t^'pical ; 

 this is not clear from the figures, but the text distinctly states that the primaries and 

 secondaries are nearly equal in size, but the tertiaries are short and bend round to fuse with 

 tlie secondaries about half-way between the \\\all and the columella. 



The columellar tangle is large and reticular, but not very sharply marked off from the 

 reticulum above described as due to the joining of the wavy septa by synapticuliv. 



Two magnified figures are given, that of the surface, 5J, agrees with oa in showing broad 

 reticxilar walls almost half the diameter of tlie calicle, but in tig. 5c, which shows a specimen 

 worn down, the walls are much thinner. 



The large columellar tangles, indefinitely increased by the addition of synapticula', are an 

 interesting I'eature.. 



Two other fossil Gonioporas occur in the same part of Java, viz. the " Porites incrassata " 

 of Eeuss (^.c, see next heading) and the " Litharcva astrmoidcs " of Martin (' Die Tertiar- 

 schichten auf Java ' (1880), p. 148). Martin points out some of the differences between his 

 " Astra;oides " and the form now under discussion. We may note in the former the alisence 

 of synapticuhe, the smaller calicles, and the non-fusion of tlie septa of the second and tliird 

 cycles. To these may lie added the very sharp cu-cumscription of the columellar tangle. 

 Martin's last figure, however, which shows this (see his PI. XXVI. fig. 9) may be purely 

 diagrammatic. 



Eeuss called attention to the resemblance between this form and the well-known English 

 Eocene (Bracklesham Bay) form " Litharaa Wchsteri," M.-E. & H., but the skeleton of the 

 former is altogether stouter. The Bracklesham Bay coral has a very variable skeleton, but it 

 is usually delicate, and the septa are not wavy nor is there any conspicuous development of 

 synapticuhe, at least sufficient to make the whole intracalicular skeleton a reticulum, the 

 columella being only its central concentration (sec p. 147). 



