to be not improbable; and indeed appears to afford a satisfactory mode 

 of explaining this curious fact. 



That the bodies now about to be more particularly described are 

 the remains of animals of a former world, seems to require no stronger 

 proof, than the circumstance of these inhabitants of the sea being 

 found in their changed state, in mountains much elevated above the 

 level of the sea, and at a considerable distance from the situations 

 which it now possesses. Whilst treating of the fossil corals, many- 

 were pointed out, whose recent analogues were positively not as yet 

 known, and which were therefore conjectured to be the remains of 

 certain species which might be now extinct. Any opinion of this 

 kind with respect to these animals appears to be hardly admissible ; 

 since from the innumerable recesses in which they lurk, and still more 

 from the comparatively small degree of eagerness with which they have 

 been sought, we are totally unable to form any conjecture, as to the 

 number of those which may have hitherto entirely escaped observation. 

 Analogy indeed may lead us to conclude, that by far the greater part 

 of these fossil bodies are actually the remains of extinct species ; but 

 where evidence of a stronger kind cannot be also obtained, the fact 



O ' 



must be considered as undetermined. 



Having made these few prefatory remarks, I shall now proceed 

 to a more particular examination of such fossils of this description, in 

 my possession, as are most illustrative of the history of these extraor- 

 dinary animals. 



Those which are of a ramified form seem to be most rarely found in 

 a mineralized state. The specimen however which is figured, Plate 

 VII. Fig. 12, and which was found in Berkshire, is undoubtedly the 

 fossil remains of one of these species ; although it is impossible to say 

 to what particular ramified species it belongs, or whether indeed it is 

 at all referable to any known species. 



An examination of the substance of this fossil, now a mixture of 

 silex and carbonate of lime, affords us internal evidence of its origin ; 



