94 



The axis flattened and fixed at the base ; caulescent, 

 ramose, substriated, solid, horny, and flexible. 



The cortical crust covering the axis and branches, in the 

 living state, is soft, fleshy and polypiferous ; in the dry state 

 spongy, porous, and friable ; the surface pierced with the 

 superficial or the projecting openings of cells. 



Gorgonia reticulata, Sol. and Ellis, Tab. xvii. will serve 

 as an example of this genus, forty-eight species of which 

 have been observed. 



No specimen of either of these genera appears to have 

 been noticed in a mineralized state ; a circumstance which, 

 at first consideration, appears difficult of explanation, since 

 the axis seems, in general, to be sufficiently solid to au- 

 thorize the belief, that it might remain long enough in a 

 subterraneous or subaqueous situation to admit of its im- 

 pregnation with earthy particles, previous to its becoming 

 entirely decomposed. But on further consideration of the 

 original nature of the substance, which does not owe its 

 solidity to the intermixture of earthy particles, but merely 

 to the condensation of a horny or membranaceous substance, 

 its decomposition, under the circumstances mentioned, should 

 rather be expected than its preservation. 



Corallina. The fixed, phytoidal, ramified polypifers 

 ranging under this genus, have not, as far as have come to 

 our knowledge, been discovered in a mineralized state ; a 

 circumstance which may perhaps be sufficiently accounted 

 for, by their extreme delicacy, and by the frequent sepa- 

 rations or articulations into which their substance is di- 

 vided. By these circumstances their adherence together 

 sufficiently long after death to allow of impregnation, would 

 be prevented ; although the dense calcareous crust in- 

 vesting their filiform axis might appear to be well adapted 

 to admit it. 



The delicacy of structure and the prevalency of corneous 

 membrane in the substance of peidcillus and fatbellaria, 



