SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 



OF 



THE SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 



KARAKORAM STONES, 



OR 



SYRINGOSPH^ERID^E. 



BY P. MARTIN DUNCAN, M.B. LOND., F.R.S. 



I. THE HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OP THE SYRINQOSPH&RIDA; AND THE LITERATURE OP THE 



SUBJECT. 



A number of spheroidal and of spherical stones, ornamented naturally on the surface, 

 and which give no indications of ever having been attached to other bodies, could not but 

 attract the attention of those geologists who years since travelled in Kashmir. Measuring 

 in some instances two or three inches in diameter and in others not half an inch, and resem- 

 bling stone balls in shape, these fossils, from the Karakoram range, became known to the 

 curious as " Karakoram stones." But that they were not simple mineral productions was 

 evident from the first to the educated collector ; nevertheless, the nature of their external 

 anatomy was singularly mistaken by those palaeontologists into whose hands they first came. 

 Dr. Verchere, when writing on the geology of Kashmir in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 

 of Bengal in 1867, had the benefit of the palseontological skill of M. de Verneuil, and two 

 plates of figures accompanied the descriptions of these remarkable forms. 1 



The description given of one species was that the bodies are " perfectly globular, covered 

 with small rounded warts, sharply defined. The whole shell, between the warts, is pierced 

 with minute pores. No traces of plates ; no mouth nor stalk scar visible." The locality 

 whence the specimens were derived was the rocky plains at the foot of the Masha Brum, 

 Karakoram chain. The generic position was stated to be that of Sphceronites. 



Another species had the name Sphceronites ryallii, Verch., given to it ; and the diag- 

 nosis is as follows : " Globular, large warts well set apart and not very sharply defined. 

 The whole shell is covered with pores. No mouth. A stalk stem very conspicuous." A third 

 specimen, also classed as a Sphceronites, is thus noticed : " Depressed, no warts or spines : no 

 plates or traces of plates, no stalk scar. The whole surface pierced by minute pores." These 

 two specimens were derived from the same locality as the first. 



1 Journal, Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1867, Ft. 2, No. 3, Appendix p. 208, Plate VIII, Figs. 5 and 6, and Plate IX, Fig. 1. 



