ENIGMATICAL FLINT BODIES BEARING THE NAME PARAMOUDEA. 217 



masses of flint often resemble in shape and size the large sponges 

 popularly known as 'Neptune's Cups,' which grow in the Seas of 

 Sumatra ; and if we could suppose a series of such gigantic sponges 

 to be separate from each other, like trees in a forest and the 

 individuals of each successive generation to grow on the exact 

 spot where the parent sponge died, and was enveloped in calcareous 

 mud, so that they should become piled one above another in a 

 vertical column, their growth keeping pace with the accumulation 

 of the enveloping calcareous mud, a counterpart of the Horstead 

 sponge phenomena might be obtained. — Vide Sir Charles Lyell, 

 " Students' Geology," Edition 1885, page 251. 



Sir Charles is no longer vague. His new version of the 

 Paramoudra enigma is not that the Paramoudras had in 

 common with all chalk flints some obscure connection with 

 sponges; but that they really are petrified sponges identical 

 with, or allied to the well-known gigantic tropical sponge, 

 popularly called " Neptune's Cup." 



Now, how a man of the vast amount of knowledge 

 acquired during a long life devoted to all the branches of 

 study bearing on Geology, could commit such an utter 

 absurdity as to identify Paramoudras with Neptune's Cup 

 sponges is to me as great an enigma as is the Paramoudra 

 itself. The Paramoudra is a cylindrical massive tube open 

 at both ends — if water be poured in at one end, every drop 

 of it runs out at the other. Neptune's Cup sponge is a cup 

 crowning the summit of a massive stalk. If water be 

 put into this cup there it remains, and as this Cup 

 sponge is of a tough leathery nature wholly unlike the 

 sponges in domestic use, I doubt if water would soak 

 through the sponge at all. But whether this be so or not, 

 the comparison of a cup to a tube open at both ends is so at 

 variance with common seuse, that to refute the comparison 

 would be wasting words. 



1 have now, in dealing with the Paramoudra enigma, 

 quoted Dr. Buckland, Professor Morris, Sir Charles Lyell, 

 and myself, the last quotation being a supplementary note to 

 the publication of the highly interesting and important 

 discovery made by my friend, Mr. Fitch. Mr. Fitch wisely, 

 as I think, limits himself to facts, and does not attempt to 

 make his discovery throw light upon the nature of the 

 Paramoudra. But the Members of the Victoria Institute 

 may naturally ask whether, or not, I have any opinion 

 as to the origin of the remarkable bodies I have this 

 evening brought under their notice. Now, my reply is 

 this. We have before us two conditions in the Paramoudra 



