74 



led to their admission among the corals, and so essentially different 

 are these specimens from any zoophyte with which I am acquainted, 

 that it appears to be of very little consequence where they are, at 

 present, introduced, so long as they are permitted to form a distinct 

 genus. To this distinction they seem to be fully entitled, since their 

 globular form alone separates them from all other genera. The fos- 

 sils of this species, or genus, may be described &&8)liciaus or calcareous 

 masses of small bodies., of a compressed globular form, connected by minute 

 jibrillce or tubuli. 



The calcareous stone, Plate VIII. Fig. 1, appeal's on a superficial 

 view, from its being composed of small globular bodies, about the 

 size of a poppy seed, to resemble those stones, which, from their fan- 

 cied likeness to the eggs of fishes, or to certain seeds, have obtained 

 the names of oolithi, cenchrites, mecanit.es, cScc. but the eye, aided by 

 a lens, soon discovers a material difference. A section of those stones 

 being made, it is found, that the little round bodies of which they are 

 composed, possess ja laminated structure ; from which those who 

 have possessed a warm imagination, have been led to fancy, that 

 they could perceive the yolk contained within the albuminous part, 

 and the latter surrounded by a shell. But in the stone now under 

 examination, and which is formed of a white calcareous matter, not 

 bearing a spathose appearance, the little roundish bodies, which are 

 imbedded in a matrix of a similar substance with themselves, have evi- 

 dently a more compressed form than the bodies just spoken of, and in 

 the centre of their superior part, in a little depression, a small pro- 

 minence, like the commencement of a minute process, may be seen. 



It is true that this peculiarity of structure is not discoverable in all 

 these little bodies : on the contrary, by far the greater part of them, 

 having been worn down by weathering or bowldering, display their 

 internal structure only; but of this no more can be said, than that 

 it manifests no appearance of lamination. The peculiar structure ob- 

 servable on those which have not sustained any injury seems decidedly 



