40 



may be concealed by the spathose matter with which the fossil is 

 penetrated. 



The honey-comb appearance of this fossil is very striking. The 

 resemblance which it bears to a honey-comb, is indeed sufficiently 

 great to account for, and to excuse the relations we meet with of 

 petrified honey-combs ; in which some have even fancied they have dis- 

 covered the relics of the bees which had perished with their dwell- 

 ing. So completely is this madrepore mineralized, that the coralline 

 substance of which it was composed is now entirely converted to a 

 spathose matter, exhibiting a shining fracture. So great indeed is the 

 chano-e which it has sustained, that it was not until I had submitted 



O 



it to examination by a lens, that I was fully convinced that it was not 

 a fragment of the spathose septa of a septarium, the tali of which had 

 been formed of a loose ferruginous earth. But by this examination 

 the perpendicular striae on the sides of the tubes were discovered, and 

 the real nature of the substance determined. This fossil was separated 

 from a lime-stone at Masbury, on Mendip, near Wells, by J. Herbert, 

 Esq. of Bristol, a gentleman whose knowledge of extraneous fossils 

 renders his communications highly valuable. This gentleman's liberal 

 assistance I shall have repeated occasion to acknowledge. 



Madrepora ananas is figured as a fossil by Bromell, Helwinge, 

 "Wolfart, Volkman, Fougt, and others; but I have not seen any fossil 

 specimen which could with certainty be referred to this particular 

 species. 



This coral is composed of angular stars, which, in its recent state, 

 being convex at their edges, and having depressions in their centre 

 and interstices, give somewhat of the appearance of the surface of a 

 pine apple. But in almost all the representations which I have seen 

 of this madrepore in a fossil state, the surface appears to have been 

 so smoothed by attrition, as to render it very difficult to determine to 

 which of the stellated madrepores it belonged. The nearest approach 

 to this madrepore which I have seen, is the specimen from Sweden, 



