13 



Dr. Woodward describes " a coralloid body, excepting the colour, 

 which is grey, resembling the tubularia purpurea of Ferrante Imperato. 

 Found in the rubble of a lead mine, near Charterhouse, Mendip, 

 Somersetshire*/' But from the negative evidence of almost every other 

 writer; and from a careful examination of the various fossil tubi- 

 pores, in different collections, I am led to suppose, that the organ-pipe 

 coral is rarely met with in a mineral state. The specific character 

 of this coral is that of being formed of tubes, connected in bundles, 

 by distant, transverse, membraneous plates: and, as has been shewn by 

 our celebrated countryman Ellis, when an opening is made into these 

 tubes, they are found to be jointed and to communicate with one 

 another by means of geniculated pipes, which pass through each of 

 them, and are radiated at their joints -f. The transverse partitions, or 

 plates, by which the perpendicular pipes are connected, appear also 

 to serve the purpose of supporting the lateral connecting pipes. The 

 different parts here alluded to, are represented Plate III. Fig. 2. in a 

 figure taken from the twenty-seventh plate of the work to which we 

 have just referred. In this representation, the internal pipe may be 

 seen dilating, and then radiating into several small pipes, which pass 

 through the connecting plates. This figure is introduced here for the 

 purpose of affording the more easy comparison with those fossils which 

 have been supposed to belong to this species* 



The fossil which approaches the nearest to the tubipora mmzca, is that 

 which is represented, Plate I. Fig. 1. It is imbedded in a dark brown 

 lime stone, from Derbyshire ; the substance of which is almost entirely 

 formed of this tubipore, as may be seen, by the quantity of projecting 

 portions on the upper and on the fore part. 



In this fossil there are several circumstances, in which an agreement 

 may be observed, between it and the organ-pipe coral ; yet, in, other 



* Dr. Woodward's Catalogue, vol. II. page 12. 



f The Natural History of Zoophytes, by John Ellis, and Daniel Solander, M. D. P. 



