336 MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 



The form occurs from Glem-ose southward to the Colorado in great quantities 

 and ranges throughout the Colorado River section. 



It could be doubtfully referred to the genus Ai-aucarites, which it more closely 

 resembles than any other, although this is for the botanists to determine. 



On pi. i, figs. 1, la-d, he figures one of the globular objects and a 

 series of markings designated imbricate scales of cone, seeds, scars, etc. 



The same year Prof. F. W. Cragin published in the Fourth Annual 

 Report of the Geological Survey of Texas" a description of this same 

 form, making it a new genus of Bryozoa, which he names Porocystis, 

 and describes on p. 165, giving to the Texan form the specific name 

 pruniformis. It is figured on pi. xxiv, figs. 2-6. In the discussion he 

 refers to Mr. Hill's paper on the Occurrence of Goniolina, and says that 

 "specimens submitted to the late Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, and which, 

 like most of those that have thus far been collected, were imperfect and 

 deceptive in surface-characters, were returned marked, ' fParkeria sp. 

 nov.'" He also speaks of having "discovered the polyzoan nature of 

 this so-called Goniolina." 



Two years later a German paleontologist, Hermann Rauff, having 

 received from Professor von Koenen five specimens of the fossil organism, 

 collected at Bull Creek Bluffs, on the Colorado River 6 miles west of 

 Austin, Tex., made them the subject of a very thorough investigation, 

 the results of which he published.'' This is by far the most exhaustive 

 study that has been made of this organism. His figures are very clear, 

 and he magnified portions of the surface ten diameters, showing the 

 exact nature of the peculiar pits with which it is covered. He finds 

 these to consist of polygonal (hexagonal, pentagonal, etc., very irregular 

 and unequal sided) areas separated by raised lines and crossed by straight, 

 depressed lines or cracks that divide them into four quadrants. Within 

 each of these little fra,mes, but rarely in the center, there is a minute 

 boss or button nearly circular in section, and rising as high as the walls 

 or higher. By radial sections he was able to prove that these latter 

 represent the summits of little tubes, now filled with mineral substances. 

 These tubes penetrate the sphere, but could not be traced far. They 

 appear, however, not to go to the center, but to take an oblique direction 



"Contribution to the invertebrate paleontology of the Texas Cretaceous, by F. W. Cragin: Fourth Aim. 

 Rep. Geol. Surv. Texas, Austin, June, 1893, pp. 139-246, pi. xxiv-xlvi. 



''Ueber Porocystis pruniformis Cragin ( = ? Araucarites Wardi Hill) aus der unteren Kreide in Texas, von 

 Hermann Rauff: N. Jahrb. f. Min., etc., 1895, Bd. I, pp. 1-1.5, pi. i. 



