May io, 1883] 



NA TURE 



35 



rapidity and decision surpassing those of the Japanese. 

 A conspicuous instance of this will be found in her recent 

 action with respect to telegraphs. For years the Chinese 

 steadily refused to have anything to do with them ; the 

 small land line which connected the foreign community 

 of Shanghai with the outer world, was maintained against 

 the violent protests of the local authorities, and the cable 

 companies experienced some difficulty in getting per- 

 mission to land their cables. But during the winter of 

 1879-80, when war with Russia was threatening, the value 

 of telegraphs was demonstrated to the Peking Govern- 

 ment. The Peiho at Tientsin was closed by ice against 

 steamers, and news could only be carried to the capital 

 by overland couriers from Shanghai. Before a year 

 elapsed a land line of telegraph was being constructed 

 between this port and Tientsin ; in a few months the line 

 was in working order, and the Chinese metropolis is now 

 in telegraphic communication with every capital in 

 Europe. 



This conservatism, respect for antiquity, conceit, pre- 

 judice, call it what we will, has something in it that 

 extorts our respect. Let us imagine a dignified and culti- 

 vated Chinese official conversing with a pushing Man- 

 chester or Birmingham manufacturer, who descants on 

 the benefits of our modern inventions. He would probably 

 commune with himself in this wise, whatever reply 

 Oriental politeness would dictate to his interviewer: 

 "China has got on very well for some tens of centuries 

 without the curious things of which this foreigner speaks; 

 she has produced in that time statesmen, poets, philo- 

 sophers, soldiers ; her people appear to have had their 

 share of affliction, but not more than those of Europe ; 

 why should we now turn around at the bidding of a 

 handful of strangers who know little of us or our 

 country, and make violent changes in our life and habits ? 

 A railway in a province will throw thousands of coolies 

 and boatmen out of employment, and bring on them 

 misery and starvation. This foreigner says that railways 

 and telegraphs have been found beneficial in his country ; 

 good, let his countrymen have them if they please, but 

 let us rest as we are for the present. Moreover, past 

 events have not given us such faith in Europeans that 

 we should take all they say for wisdom and justice." A 

 day will undoubtedly come when China also will have her 

 great mechanical and scientific enterprises ; but what we 

 contend for here is that nothing we can say or do will 

 bring that time an hour nearer. European public opinion 

 is to China a dead letter ; she refuses to plead before that 

 tribunal. Each step of her advance along our path must 

 be the result of her own reflection and experience ; and 

 our wisest policy would be to leave her to herself to 

 advance on it as she deems best. Sinensis 



PROF. LINDSTROM ON OPERCULATE 

 CORALS ' 



THE extinct stony corals, the calicles of which are 

 provided with calcareous opercula, have ever been 

 a puzzle to naturalists, since they are almost entirely with- 

 out parallel amongst existing Anthozoa. The genera and 

 species are not numerous, and are all of Palaeozoic age. 

 By far the finest and best preserved specimens of the 

 most important forms are found in the Silurian strata in 

 the Island of Gothland in the Baltic, and are collected for 

 the National Museum at Stockholm, where they come 

 under the care of Prof. Lindstrdm, the author of the 

 present memoir, so justly distinguished for his palaeonto- 

 logical researches generally, and especially for those on 

 corals. In this memoir he gives a n'sume of all the 

 forms of operculate corals as yet known, embodying an 

 immense amount of important new information derived 

 from his own prolonged investigations on a series of most 



1 "Om de Palaeozoifka Formationernas Operkelbarande Koraller." Af 

 G. Lindstrom, Bihang till K. Svenska, Vet. Akad. Handlingar, B. 7, No. 4. 



remarkable specimens which I had the advantage of 

 seeing and having explained to me by him in the summer 

 of last year. The whole paper foims a most valuable con- 

 tribution to our knowledge of these especially interesting 

 and peculiar corals. 



Fig. \.— Goniophyllum pyramidal? (mulatto u-atnda), viewed from above, 

 with "the opercular valves in situ of the natural size. 



The first operculate coral described was Goniophylhim 

 pyramidale, which Bromell in 1729 placed amongst the 

 corals. The best known, and the one concerning which 

 there has been the greatest difference of opinion, is Cal- 

 ceola sandalina, which was first figured in 1749 from the 

 collection of Rosinus of Hamburg, by Bruchmann, who 

 pointed out the resemblance of the coral to the front of a 

 woman's slipper. 



Bruchmann referred Calceola to the corals just as 

 Bromell had Goniophyllum, but this was mainly because 

 neither he or other early authors following him were 

 acquainted with the opercula belonging to the specimens. 

 Linntf placed Calceola with the Mollusca as Anomia 

 sandalina. Later it was referred to the Brachiopoda, a 

 position in which a large number of eminent modern 

 authorities retain it. If Calceola stood alone, the gravest 

 doubts might certainly be entertained as to its having 

 any relations to the corals ; but now that a series of 

 clearly allied forms such as Goniophyllum and Rhizophyl- 

 lum, also bearing opercula, have had their structure so 

 fully and satisfactorily worked out as has been done by 

 Prof. Lindstrom, it is hardly possible not to follow him 

 in placing the whole amongst the Anthozoa. The curious 

 arrangement of the septa in Calceola closely resembles 

 that in Goniophyllum as regards the septa both in the 

 calicles and on the opercula. It is almost impossible to 

 doubt the Anthozoan nature of Goniophyllum, whilst both 

 it and Rhizophyllum, which has like Calceola an oper- 

 culum of a single piece only, demonstrate their close 

 relation to numerous recognised Palaeozoic corals by 

 exhibiting intracalicynal gemmation, and developing, like 

 many other corals, abundance of roots. 



The author divides the Anthozoa operculata into two 

 families — 



I. Calceolidae (or Heterotcechidae), distinguished by 

 having the septa on the inner face of the operculum not 

 alike and a median septum the largest. 



II. Araeopomatidae (or Homotoechidas), with the septa 

 on the operculum all alike and no defined median septum. 



The Calceolidae include all those forms in which the 

 operculum, whether composed of one or four valves, has 

 this valve or valves marked inside with a stout prominent 

 median septum. . .... 



The family falls into two groups— the one in which the 

 operculum consists of a single valve containing three 

 genera, namelv, the well-known Calceola, distinguished 

 by not multiplying by budding, being thus never com- 

 pound, by having no root-tubes, and not showing vesicu- 

 lar structure internally ; and two others— Rhizophyllum 

 and Platyphyllum — in both of which calicynal gemmation 

 occurs and the internal structure is vesicular, somewhat 

 as in Cystiphyllum. 



In Rhizophyllum, a genus founded by Lindstrom, the 



