MALAY ARCHIPELAGO QONIOPOBJE, 77 



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

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

 give a name to the type of growth. This name would have to be, according to rule, " <■'. 8toheai." 

 This is useful, but the help which it gives towards a natural classification is limited. 



46. Goniopora Java Sea c4) 2. 



[Valley of the Tji-lanang (Gunung Sela), not far from Liotjitjangkang, Kongga I >istrict 



(Upper Miocene), ? Museum.] 



Litharaa affinis, Belies, Ubcr foss. Korallen Java: Keise Osterr-Fregatte Novara, ii. (1*00) p. 17"', 

 pi. ii. fig. fw, I', ft 



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



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

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

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

 periphery, wavy, almost regularly fenestrated, and united by synapticuke so that the septal 

 apparatus often appears like a network with rounded meshes. The septal formula is typical ; 

 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 

 the secondaries about half-way between the wall 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 synapticula-. 



Two maguified figures are given, that of the surface, 55, agrees with 5a in showing broad 

 reticular walls almost half the diameter of the calicle, but in fig. 5c, which shows a specimen 

 worn down, the walls are much thinner. 



The large columellar tangles, indefinitely increased by the addition of synapticula 1 , are an 

 interesting feature. 



Two other fossil Gonioporas occur in the same part of Java, viz. the " Pontes iuc.rassata " 

 of Keuss (I.e., see next heading) and the " Litharcca astramdcs " of Martin (' Die Tertiar- 

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

 " Astneoides " and the form now under discussion. We may note in the former the absence 

 of synapticuke, the smaller calicles, and the non-fusion of the septa of the second and third 

 cycles. To these may be added the very sharp circumscription 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 " Litharcca Websteri," 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 

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

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



