118 MADREPORARIA. 



that they give Turin as the first locality makes one think that they were referring primarily 

 to Michelin's coral. In that cake all the facts have been confused by their arbitrarily changing 

 the name. Instead of it being a fossil from Turin we have it stated that it occurs also at 

 Bordeaux, Dax, at the mouth of the Rhone, and, quoting Reuss, in Bohemia, round Vienna, 

 in lower Austria, Hungary, and Moravia. There is no way out of this confusion except by 

 going back to ascertainable facts. These are as follows :— Michelin figured a Goniopora from 

 Turin (or perhaps from near Asti), and he believed it was the same fossil which Michelotti 

 had mistaken for a sponge and had called Tethia asbestella* Sismonda having re-examined 

 Michelotti's " sponge," pronounced it to be a Litharcea ( = Goniopora) which formed masses 

 sometimes encrusting but thick, with nearly round calicles and septa thin and few in number. 

 This description does not agree very well with Michelin's figure. We have then only 

 Michelin's own figure and description to deal with. According to our rule we assume that 

 these apply primarily to the specimens found at the locality first mentioned, that is, in this 

 case, Asti. This description should therefore have come under Goniopora Alessandria 1. 



102. Goniopora Turin (3) 2- 

 [Turin (Middle Miocene), coll. Michelotti ; Geol. Mus. Univ. Rome.] 



t Litharcea asbestella, Sismonda, Pal. Terrain Tert. Piemont (1871), p. 25. 

 LUharaa asbestella {pars), Angelis, Atti R. Accad. Lincei (1895), p. 178. 



Description. — Corallum forms large solid masses. 



The calicles 1*5 mm. across. The skeleton is very open and the septa not at all 

 symmetrically arranged. They are short, f hardly ever free, and meet irregularly in pairs, 

 but whether meeting or single they abut upon a straggling, often almost polygonal, columellar 

 ring. There appear to be only 12, but there are signs of some of them forking near the 

 wall, and further, the fusions show no trace of the formula typical of Porites. The wall 

 threads are quite straggling and irregular, of the same thickness as the septa. The interseptal 

 loculi very large, open, and angular. The very irregular angular reticulum of the surface with 

 its large open meshes is in strong contrast with the rows of regular trabeculse running 

 vertically through the mass of the coral and separated by rows of large pores. 



This is the description of a large fragment of a block which had been rolled into a pebble 

 6 cm. thick, belonging to the Michelotti Collection in the Geological Museum in Rome. It is 

 labelled " L. asbestella Helvetian, Colli di Torino." It is nothing like the P. collegniana of 

 Michelin (see synonymies of Michelin and Sismonda), nor is there anything in Sismonda's 

 text which could possibly help towards its identification with his asbestella. 



The specimen has a strong resemblance in skeletal structure to that from Stazzano (see 

 G. Alessandria 3). 



* Spec. Zoophytolog. diluvianae, Turin, 1838, p. 218. 



f Sismonda comparing his "L. asbestella" with " L. diversiformis," says, the septa of the latter 

 form, which he figures as long and tapering, are shorter than those of the former. 



