DEVONIAN ROCKS OP CANADA WEST. 181 



somewliat similar to tliose of the genus Syringopora. These procesaea 

 may be observed in every stage of development upon the sides of the 

 corallites. Some are just elevated above the surface, while others 

 project more or less, but terminate in sharp points before reaching 

 the neighbouring stem. Those which are sufficiently extended to 

 come in contact with a contiguous corallite have their extremities 

 sometimes forked, the branches clasping round the trunk, but often 

 they are perfectly united or incorporated with the epitheca directly, 

 and without bifurcation. It is a remarkable character that in most 

 of the specimens they are nearly all turned in the same direction or 

 towards the same side of the whole group. It may be that this 

 peculiar mode of growth was induced by the currents of the ocean, 

 the processes growing either against or with the stream. Occasion- 

 ally we find a specimen in which they radiate in all directions, and it 

 is probable that these may have grown in places where there was still 

 water. When the stems are very flexuous, they sometimes touch 

 each other, and in such instances they grow together for a short dis- 

 tance, and then separate. 



The fossils on which the genus was founded were collected by De 

 Verneuil at the falls of the Ohio, in strata which are no doubt of the 

 same age as the Corniferous limestone of Canada and New York. — 

 Two of the Canadian species are identical with two of those described 

 by Edwards and Haime ; and I should not be surprised if the third 

 should yet turn out to be B. rugosum of the same authors. 



... 



> -K I 



\3 



Fig. 26. Eridophyllum Verneuilanum. Fig. 27. Eridophyllum Simcoenae, 



Eridophtlium: YeeneuiIiANUm. — (Edwards and Haime.) 



Eeidophtlltjm: Veeneuilanum. Edw. & Haime, Polypiers Fossiles, 



p. 424, pi. 8, fig. 6, 6 a, 



Corallites half an inch or a little less in diameter, aggregated in 

 large masses, sometimes two or three feet in width ; surface strongly 



