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BRITISH FOSSIL SPONGES. 
1775 Knorr, G. W., et Wancu, J. E. M. Recueil de Monumens des Cata- 
strophes que la Globe de la Terre a esseuiées, contenant des pétrifica- 
tions dessinées, gravées et enluminées d’apres les originaux. 
Many fossil Sponges are figured; some, apparently calcisponges, are 
regarded as Alcyonia, and their vents or oscules are stated to be the habita- 
tions of polypes. Siliceous hexactinellid and lithistid Sponges, from the 
Jurassic strata of Randen in Switzerland, are partly termed Fungites, and 
placed in the same group with genuine Corals, and partly placed under Escha- 
rites and Reteporites. 
1783 Guertarp, J.E. Sur plusiers corps marins fossiles de la classe des Coraux 
(Mém. de ? Acad. Roy. des Sciences, vol. iv, Pls. 1—29.) 
There are numerous figures of lithistid Sponges; some are styled Cari- 
coides and others Carico-Madreporites and Fungoides. 
1774-84 Scuronter, J. S. Vollstandige Hinleitung in d. Kenntniss u. Ge- 
schichte d. Steine u. Versteinerungen. 
Mentions a lithistid Sponge under the name of Alcyoniwm ficus, and regards 
it and other Aleyonia as Corals. 
1808 Parkinson, J. J. Organic Remains of a Former World. 
In the second volume, the nature of fossil Sponges is discussed in detail, 
and the author records the results of a series of painstaking observations and 
experiments of grinding them down and treating the surfaces with acid. They 
are placed under Alcyonium or Spongia, and fully believed to have been pro- 
duced by animals, though the author could form no idea of their nature. The 
author discovered cruciform spicules in the dermal layer of a hexactinellid 
Sponge, and noticed the quadrate arrangement of the mesh in the Jurassic genus 
Pachyteichisma. Reference is also made to the Ventriculites in flint. Very 
good figures are given of numerous species of Sponges from Jurassic, Greensand, 
and Chalk strata; the author, however, does not assign to them distinctive 
names, but places them all under the common term Alcyonites. 
1814 Wusstgr, T. On some new varieties of fossil Aleyonia (Transact. Geol. 
Soc., 1 S., vol. ii, p. 377, Pls. 27—80). 
Describes and figures the lithistid Sponge now known as Jerea Websteri, 
under the name of Tulip aleyonium. Some specimens are erroneously stated 
to possess stems four to five feet in length. 
3. 1815 Manrets, G. A. Description of a fossil Aleyonium from the Chalk Strata 
of Lewes (Transact. Linn. Soc., vol. xi, p. 401, Pls. 27—30). 
Examples of the Sponge, described later by the same author as Ventriculites 
radiatus, are referred to under the name of Aleyoniwm chonoides, These forms 
