160 MADREPORARIA. 



The supposed type of this coral is preserved in the Museum of the Geological Society of 

 London. It was examined by Dr. Vaughan, who rightly suggested that it is a Litharcea = 

 Gimiopora, and added that the figure must be used with a qualification. My own examination 

 of the same specimen leads me to think that there must be some serious error. The specimen 

 is a flattened fragment, not strikingly suggestive of having consisted of cylindrical branches 

 forking at small angles, while the calicles figured are those of some other coral altogether. 

 There is not a character in the drawing which agrees in the remotest with the calicles of the 

 specimen. 



The specimen itself is certainly a Goniopora. The calicles are faintly depressed with the 

 walls as slight ridges where the depressions touch; the septa slope from the wall edges 

 inwards. The walls are simply the ridges in which the septa of adjacent calicles run 

 confusedly together. The septa are wavy, irregular, and variable in thickness, but radially 

 arranged, and show no such remarkable variation in number as " eight to twenty-four " ; they 

 meet in a central tangle of different sizes without any marked formation of pali. 



It is a great pity that this, which with G. Jamaicce 2 are the only Gonioporce said to come 

 from the West Indies, comes under the suspicion of error, for we do not know for certain 

 whether it comes from the West Indies at all, as it is not the specimen described and figured. 

 A different kind of uncertainty shrouded the specimen described on p. 155, Vol. IV. It was 

 difficult to give any decided opinion as to whether that specimen was a Goniopora or not, 

 but in this case there is no doubt about the specimen being a Goniopora, but it is the locality 

 which may be open to doubt. We can, however, do no more than record it as it is labelled. 



The scarcity of Gonioporce in the West Indies is somewhat striking, since Porites are so 

 common and characteristic an element in the coral fauna. No recent forms are known at all. 

 The presence of these two fossils in Jamaica may perhaps be correlated with the presence of a 

 rich Gonioporan fauna in the Western European region, e.g. in the Paris basin and the 

 Bracklesham Beds of England, on the other side of the Atlantic area. 



168. Goniopora Jamaica 2- (G. Jamaicce secunda.) 

 [Jamaica (Tertiary), coll. Lucas Barrett ; British Museum.] 



Description. — The corallum is a worn fragment of a massive stock. The original surface 

 has been taken off for only a short depth, as we may gather from the condition of the remains 

 of certain Balanids which infested it. 



The calicles appear to have been about 1 * 75 mm. in diameter with reticular walls, the 

 threads of which were mostly continuous with the septa. Walls, septa and columeUar tangle 

 seem to have formed together a close network, so uniformly irregular that it is difficult even to 

 trace the calicles at all in the section. Faint indications of a radial symmetry come here and 

 there to light, but it is always difficult to discover where the septa end and the walls begin. 

 The limits of the columeUar tangle are also hard to define. As far as I could make out, there 

 appear to have been about fifteen septa. 



The vertical section is very perfectly preserved, and shows regular trabeculae with a 

 tendency to be lamellate, and joined together by lamellate or flaky liorizontal elements. 

 Tabulae are numerous. 



