68 THE PALEONTOLOGY OF MINNESOTA. 



LAnomalospongia. 



Pasceolus Billings (Geological Survey of Canada ; Report of Progress for 1857, 

 p. 342), may belong to the Receptaculitida, but we are unable to give a definite opinion 

 regarding its systematic position. 



ANOMALOSPONGIA, nov. nom. 



ON THE STRUCTURE AND SYSTEMATIC POSITION OP "ANOMALOIDES," AND 

 A PROPOSAL TO CHANGE THE NAME TO ANOMALOSPONGIA. 



BY E. O. ULKICH. 



The name Anomaloides reticulatus was proposed by me in 1878 in my first contri- 

 bution to paleontologic science (Jour. Gin. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. i, p. 92). Viewed as 

 a first effort, some of the errors contained in that paper may be excused, especially 

 since none of them are very bad, and the worst not entirely my fault, as I hope to 

 show in a paper to be published soon. One error, that in the construction of the 

 name Anomaloides, was pointed out by Mr. S. A. Miller (North Amer. Geol. and Pal., 

 p. 224, 1889). I acknowledge the justice of his criticism, and although similarly con- 

 structed names are allowed to stand, I think it Best, now that the nature of the fossil 

 is determined, to change the name. I propose therefore to use Anomalospongia 

 instead. The new name retains the principal part of the original designation, and 

 the ending spongia denominates the class to which the fossil belongs. Nor is Anom- 

 alospongia at all inappropriate, for the specimens now so named are, as will appear 

 later on, still to be regarded as anomalous. 



The original specimens, 35 in number, were all fragments, some large, most of 

 them small, and all found within a space a few feet square in the middle beds of the 

 Cincinnati group at Covington, Kentucky. Further search at the same spot resulted 

 in a few more fragments, all of them small, and, like many of the originals, con- 

 siderably obscured by the adhering clayey matrix. For ten years these specimens 

 remained in my cabinet without further examination, I having been under the im- 

 pression that their structure had been determined as far as the specimens at hand 

 would admit. At last, after the possibility of other affinities than with Echinodermata 

 was suggested, a re-examination was determined upon. This time I began with the 

 fragments that in my original study were cast aside because of the obscuring matrix. 

 Having some experience in cleaning fossils in that condition I succeeded in freeing 

 several fragments of their clayey investment. The result was most gratifying, since 

 the cleaned surface showed unquestionably a layer of overlapping spicule rays, prov- 

 ing the fossil to belong to the Spongida and not to the Echinodermata. 



