323 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Structure of the Foraminifera. 



joined portions of opake material), a lash of branches from the 

 " canal-system" may here and there be observed to come through 

 one of the puncta, and spread out among these white lines, when 

 the double line and transparency indicative of a continued canal 

 in them, at once, and by contrast, shows the nature of both. 

 Thus, from what has been stated, we see that neither the white 

 puneta nor the minute white branchwork of lines were ever 

 tubular. In most Nummulites the white puncta appear on the 

 surface, and, when examined in a vertical section of the Num- 

 mulite, are observed to be more or less conical, and of different 

 lengths according with the date of the commencement of their 

 development, those which began with the earliest parts of the 

 Nummulite being longest. They arise in points from the sur- 

 face of the chambers and the interseptal spaces, and end at the 

 periphery, on a level with the rest of the test ; but, being harder 

 than the latter, they project on weathering, become rounded, 

 and thus give the fossil a more or less granular surface. Now, 

 in none of these white lines, white puncta, nor minute white 

 branchwork, have I ever been able to see any indication, either 

 in recent Operculina, the fossilized infiltrated one, or in Num- 

 mulites, of any branches of the canal-system, except by accident. 

 Neither in the ends of the columns in Orbitoides dispansa, which 

 are the same as those of Nummulites, have I, in the most richly 

 and minutely infiltrated specimens, been able to see, in the ends 

 of the white columns on the surface, any red or yellow point 

 indicating that they are always in connexion with a branch of 

 the canal-system which traverses them longitudinally. So we 

 must set these portions down as having nothing to do with the 

 canal-system, however much they may conduce to the strength 

 of the test. 



Thus we see that the " tres-petits canaux " of MM. d'Archiac 

 and Haime (p. 60) were the "vertical tubuli;" their "canaux 

 moyens " the openings of the canal-system on the surface and 

 along the spiral canals and spicular cord; and their "larges 

 canaux " no canals at all, but the ends of the columns of con- 

 densed shell-substance. Dr. Carpenter, who also at first con- 

 sidered the latter canals, renounced this view long ago (Phil. 

 Trans. 1856, p. 55S, foot-note). 



Spicular cord. — The same infiltrated specimens of N. Ramondi 

 which were obtained from the Rajpipla Hills, a little south of 

 the river Nurbudda, near Broach, that have latterly furnished 

 me with such beautiful confirmations of Nummulites possessing 

 the same canal- structure as that in Operculina, have afforded 

 almost as much evidence of the spicular composition of the cord; 

 for, besides being accompanied with equally beautiful infiltrated 

 specimens of Operculina for comparison, they are all imbedded 



