FRENCH GONIOPOK.i:. 141 



135. Goniopora Paris Basin < 14 )12. (PI. X a . fig. 4.) 

 [ Le Fayel,* north-west of Paris, near Marines (Upper Eocene) ; British Musenm. | 



Description. — Corallum, form unknown, a small smoothly worn fragment of what appears 

 to have lieen a massive block. 



Calicles 2 mm. in diameter, not very conspicuous in the section. The wall a thin but 

 stout reticulum, the pores on the tops of the walls not so minute as in the preceding coral. 

 The septa angularly bent and twisted, here and there stout, but nowhere of uniform thick- 

 ness, at one point swollen into a knob and then thinned down to a thread. The columellar 

 tangle consists of the same kind of elements. The interseptal loculi and other meshes are all 

 fairly open, but the radial symmetry of the former is not very marked. 



This coral is clearly connected with the preceding, but the extraordinary contrasts which 

 characterised that coral between the swollen walls and thick moniliform septa on the one hand, 

 and the minute pores and the delicate synapticuke on the other, are not seen here. This, 

 therefore, is not quite so specialised as the foregoing. 



The fragment appears to be part of a small flat pebble, 1 by 1 • 5 by ■ 5 cm. 



a. GeoL Dept. K. 1917. 



13G. Goniopora Paris Basin Q4) 13. . (PI. X<*. fig. 7 ; and PL XIV. fig. 13.) 

 [Au vers (Upper Eocene) ; British Museum.] 



Description. — Corallum forms small rounded nodules, expanding rapidly above a small 

 base of attachment, with straight sides and somewhat flattened top. 



The calicles 2 mm. in diameter, shallow and circular. Walls round-topped, rather thick 

 (? slightly raised), and consisting of a ragged very open reticulum, without any trace of median 

 ridge, or wall-thread or membrane, or of septal striation, or indeed of any of the ordinary 

 mural characters. Some 12-13 septa, separated by large open interseptal loculi, are con- 

 spicuous, but not only do many of them seem to fork near the walls, but knobs and points of 

 the wall-reticulum also suggest that the real number is greater. The septa when complete 

 are angularly wavy, and with occasional synapticular spikes, which meet irregularly across 

 the loculi ; further, though very perforate, they are conspicuously lamellate. The columellar 

 tangle is an open irregular reticulum similar to that seen in the walls. There is a tendency 

 for some of its filaments to widen out into large flakes. 



There is one apparently perfect little specimen of this coral. It is not easy to say how 

 far it has been worn. The apparent growth-form (an inverted cone) may be natural, but is 



* There seem to be other Le Fayels in France, but this is probably the one mentioned on 

 p. 49 of Messrs. Harris and Burrows' 'Paris Basin ' (Geologists Assoc.), 1891. 



