320 DECEMBER. 



These phenomena depend on the circumstance that it 

 is almost wholly composed of great stout three-rayed 

 spicula, solid throughout, together with a multitude of 

 excessively slender needles, straight, long, pointed at 

 one end ; and many others as slender, but very short ; 

 no longer, indeed, than the thickness of one of the 

 three- rayed. 1 



Equally numerous with these, and possessing a 

 certain amount of resemblance to them, are some thick, 

 compact, sack- shaped masses, with angular edges and 

 blunt points : sometimes they are flattened and dilated, 

 like a sack when empty ; sometimes rounded, like a 

 sack when full. In the former condition several per- 

 forations occur along the terminal ridge, in the latter 

 there is generally but one. The colour is white, slightly 

 tinted, just as in the preceding. It stands up boldly 

 and stiffly (or rather hangs in the natural state) from 

 its rather narrow base to the height of about two-thirds 

 of an inch, and the flattened specimens are as wide as 

 this. It is nearly made up of three-rayed spicula, some 

 of large size, but more rather small. A transverse 

 section shows no obvious arrangement, except that of 

 the great central channel, into which the points of the 



1 It is possible that these may be fragments of the longer needles ; but 

 from their bluntly-pointed ends, and general agreement inter se, I do not 

 think so. 



