EED SEA AND EGYPTIAN GONIOPORiE. 105 



of a fragment of the top of a ridge, upon which a smaller ridge had started, one side of thia 

 new ridge bulged outwards and overhung, the other liad a creeping edge. 



Calicles small, slightly over 2 mm., depressed, about ■ 5 mm. deep, irregularly cup-shaped ; 

 walls about 1 mm. thick, very coarse, reticular, and consisting of a few very thick, twisted, 

 vertical flakes or perforated lamina?, running in the direction of growth ; in the lateral 

 calicles, their tops are striated by the septa. These latter are also very irregularly perforated 

 lamina?, the pores being large and often in single rows, sometimes vertical, sometimes sloping 

 upwards towards the axis. They are very twisted, with a confused radial arrangement, 

 sometimes meeting to form a central ring or a small, coarse tangle. The septa fuse so 

 irregularly that it is difficult to count them, 12 can generally be seen meeting the columella,, 

 but these branch and fuse near the wall in a manner showing very slight traces of the typical 

 formula. In the exposed sections, the most conspicuous feature is the immense number of 

 stout septal lamina? like flakes projecting above the surface of the fracture. 



This interesting sub-fossilised Goniopora from the shores of the Sinaitic Peninsula appearr. 

 to be a transition form between the two, Goniopora Bed Sea 1 and 2, and the group last 

 described under G. Red Sea 4- It shows the open skeleton, the sheafs of laminate septa 

 perforated so as to be almost filamentous, and the walls also with large oval holes. 



The surface has unfortunately been too worn away for more accurate diagnosis of the 

 calicular skeleton ; fig. 3 is practically a section. 



a. ' Geol. Dept. 56375. 



80. Goniopora Egypt (3) 1. 

 [El-guss-abu-Said, older strata of Libyan steppes (Lower Eocene), coll. Eohlfs.] 

 Litharak sp., Pratz, Palceontographim, xxx. (1883) part ii. p. 223. 



Description. — Corallum cylindrical. 



Calicles vary in size from 3-5 mm., moderately deep, irregularly polygonal. Walls lattice- 

 like. Septa very thin, 20-24, about half of which unite into a large reticular columellar 

 tangle. 



Only one badly preserved specimen is recorded among the collections included in 

 Professor Zittel's 'Beitrage zur Geol. und Pal. der Libyschen Wuste,' and provisionally 

 described by Pratz. The cylindrical growth suggests that the specimen was part of a branch- 

 ing form. No allusion to its being a fragment is made in the description. The septa are thin 

 and the columellar tangle is large, as is the case in G. Egypt S. 



p 



