UPPER, OR FLINTY CHALK. 167 



chalk, and exhibits no traces of organic structure. The impressions of 

 this fossil form a surface covered with minute papillae, that have been 

 moulded in the meshes or interstices of the reticulated integument. 



There is no recent genus to which this zoophyte can with propriety 

 be referred; it approaches in some respects to the gorgonicF, and in 

 others, to the flustrce, but possesses characters that separate it from 

 both*. 



Localities. Upper and lower Chalk, near Lewes, and Brighton. 



Ventriculites. 



This genus has been instituted by the author, for the reception of a 

 numerous and highly interesting division of fossil zoophytes, whose re- 

 mains have usually been confounded with the spongiae, alcyonia, and other 

 analogous genera. 



The first specimen submitted to my notice, was the elegant flint, de- 

 hneated in tab. x. fig. 5 ; it was collected many years since by my esteemed 

 friend, Thomas Woollgar, Esq. of Lewes, and was supposed to be a pe- 

 trified mushroom, or some other species of agaric. A shght examination, 

 however, convinced me that its form was derived from some unknown 

 zoophyte ; and being very desirous of ascertaining the nature of the ori- 

 ginal, I shewed the specimen in question, to the workmen employed in 

 the chalk-quarries near Lewes, and by exciting their industry with 

 suitable rewards, soon formed an extensive collection of these curious 

 bodies. But the refractory nature of the silex in which they were en- 

 veloped, prevented the acquirement of any satisfactory information ; the 

 sections produced by fracture merely proving, that the enclosed zoophyte 

 was of a cyathiform shape, and possessed processes of attachment at the 

 base. 



Early in the ensuing year, a broad circular fossil, with a reticulated 

 surface, was discovered in a block of chalk, on the road-side near Kingmer ; 



* It very closely resembles a fossil in the British Museum, marked " Flustra, from Ne'w 

 Holland." 



