DESCRIPTION OF CORALS. 135 
comparison of the English fossil with the Lithodendron gibbosum of Minster 
(consult Goldfuss, Petref. tab. 37. f. 9), which Ehrenberg observes may be a 
Stephanocora, will point out some structural agreements. Notwithstanding, 
however, this amount of resemblances, it has been deemed advisable to consider 
the Bracklesham polypidom provisionally an Oculina, as it wants the peculiar 
centre dwelt upon by Ehrenberg; and the placing it even doubtfully in 
Stephanocora would entail a severance from Oc. raristella with which it is 
connected in all essential structures, as well as an inquiry into the characters 
of very many other allied corals—an undertaking which the compiler of these 
imperfect memoranda is not prepared to commence. 
So far as the describer is aware, this fossil is distinct from any published 
species. 
The series submitted to examination included, besides the fine specimen 
figured (Tab. I. fig. 3), another, belonging to Mr. Edwards’s cabinet, of rather 
greater size, and part of a third, which probably, when perfect, possessed nearly 
equal dimensions. They all exhibited a large but not perfectly medial cavity 
that penetrated their whole length, and represented clearly the position of a 
perishable extraneous body, around which the coral formed, and not a hollow 
due to the decomposition of a central structure in the polypidom itself, the only 
perfect termination, with a limited portion of the adjacent interior, being coated 
by the intertubular reticulated substance. The thickness of the polype-struc- 
ture surrounding the cavities varied greatly, as was well shown in the figured 
specimen ; and the fragment above-mentioned, which was more regular in the 
general surface, had at the intersected extremity a thickness in the broadest 
part of 9 lines, and in the narrowest of 4, while at the other end, the length 
being only 2 inches, the thickness nowhere exceeded 2 lines. Some portions 
believed to be detached lobes or branches had a flattened palmated form. 
Neither of the large, nearly perfect specimens exhibited any signs of a base or 
expanded foot, but each apparently derived its chief support from the body 
around which it was developed. 
The tubular openings varied in diameter from 13 to 2 lines, and the termina- 
tions, as shown in figure 3a (Tab. I.), were in general very slightly depressed 
in the centre ; but in a detached branch which gave a series of extremities with 
perfect margins, the middle was deeply cup-shaped. The extension above the 
adjacent intertubular surface will also be found by reference to the same figure to 
have varied greatly, and sometimes to have extended into horn-like lobes (fig. 3). 
72 
= 
