68 Mr. H. J. Carter on the close Relationship of 



from Prof. King, of Galway, and Mr. SoUas, too, that some of 

 these specimens at least presented a reticulated structure, it 

 struck me that they might be allied to Farkeria. 



Under this impression, I paid a visit to my friend Mr. Vicary, 

 of Exeter, in whose beautiful collection (the more beautiful, too, 

 because it has been made subservient to researches in geology 

 and palaeontology) I knew there were several -specimens of 

 Stromatopora from the Devonian Limestone, especially a large 

 conical one, about 6 inches by 4 in its greatest diameters, in 

 dark, almost black, limestone, with a bossed surface not unlike 

 the bossed form of Parkeria to which I have before alluded. 



Having found my friend, as usual, only too anxious to place 

 every thing in this way at my disposal, I examined this speci- 

 men, as well as another of the same kind, which, although 

 imperfect, had retained a portion of the bossed surface from 

 which a polished section had been made inioards vertically, so 

 as to show the structure of the Stromatopora in this direction, — 

 when I became impressed with the resemblance of the wavy 

 character of the concentric lines to that oiParheria nodosa, and, 

 on turning to the surface itself, found this granulated also like 

 that of Parkeria, arising from the weathering out of the inter- 

 stitial matter of the same kind of tissue-fibre. Moreover, on 

 the summit of each of the bosses just mentioned is a stelli- 

 form lineation, whose arms descending in a branched, radiating, 

 subdendritic form, meet in their ultimate divisions those of the 

 neighbouring stellates ; while over the whole surface, bosses 

 and all indiscriminately, are irregularly scattered small pa- 

 pilliform elevations about l-96th inch in diameter, but of va- 

 riable sizes and at variable distances from each other (fig. 19, 

 a a, hh). The stellate lines, together with a similar papilliform 

 eminence in the centre, about l-48th inch in diameter, and 

 the papilliform eminences throughout, are chiefly made up of 

 transparent calcspar, which contrasts strongly from its homo- 

 geneity with the surrounding tissue-fibre, indicating that ori- 

 ginally all these parts were hollow ; besides this, the more 

 superficial lines of the stellate are rendered more evident by 

 being slightly raised above the general surface ; so that they are 

 not grooves like the stellate lines of Bradya tergestina. The 

 stelliform systems, which are a well-known feature of Stroma- 

 topora, have already been foreshadowed in the description of 

 Bradya tergestina, and perhaps, as has before been stated, in 

 a rudimentary form in Lqftusia p)ersica, if not also in the sub- 

 radiating lines on the eminences of the surface of Parkeria 

 sphcerica and, through the plane projection, of the large spine 

 oi Hydr actinia ecMnata, as before mentioned (p. 48). 



But be this as it may, it appears here, as well as in Bradya 



