52 



the name of tulip alcyonia*. These fossils decidedly agree 

 in the characters which have been here assumed for this 

 genus. 



Soon after the discovery of these fossils, Miss Benett, 

 whose exertions have much aided this department of natural 

 history, favoured the Geological Society with a suite of 

 drawings, and of fossil specimens of various forms, but 

 decidedly of this genus, which had been found in the sand, 

 chiefly in the neighbourhood of Warminster. This valuable 

 collection is rendered extremely interesting, by the great 

 variety of forms which these fossils have assumed ; cylin- 

 drical, straight, ramified, round, oblong, ovoid, wide and 

 narrow, short and long, cup or funnel-formed; elongated 

 like a cucumber, as in Organic Remains, vol ii. PL 10. 

 fig. 6 ; tulip-formed, exactly agreeing with those discovered 

 by Mr. Webster, and assuming also the forms of spongia 

 turgida, sp. alcicornis et damicornis, and indeed many other 

 of those forms which sponge offers to our observation. 

 Among the most interesting specimens are those which are 

 lobated, and in which from two to five or six lobes, closely 

 united together, are found upon one stem ; and in one spe- 

 cimen, two stems arise from the same base, one of which 

 terminates with three and the other with four lobes. 



Flints are sometimes found of a roundish form, pierced 

 internally with numerous tubules passing in every direction, 

 and giving the idea of the flint having invested a small 

 hispid leafless shrub. It is extremely probable that these 

 fossils may have originated in a species of this genus, 

 bearing this form, and having the tubuli thus radiating 



* Geological Transactions, vol. ii. The importance of this 

 discovery of Mr. Webster will be observed, when it is considered 

 that the remains of this animal, known perhaps only in this for- 

 mation, are found in considerable numbers in the Leith Hill of 

 Surrey, in the green sand of Wiltshire, Devonshire, &c. and in the 

 freestone of Portland. 



