1865.] WHITAKEE ISLE OP THANET CHALK, 395 



tion, and a few are very hard. The usual hardening of the normal 

 coral salts is not observed in the majority, and there are no in- 

 stances of siliceous or of calcareous transposition. The specimens can 

 hardly be said to be fossilized in the ordinary acceptation of the term ; 

 they have not been rolled, but probably were quietly covered up by 

 sediment during a slowly progressing depression of the sea-bottom. 



The species are new, and owing to our scanty knowledge of the 

 deep-sea corals of the southern hemisphere little can be adduced re- 

 specting their affinities. 



The CarjfOj^hylUa is a beautiful little coral and has but a remote 

 affinity with any recent or fossil species. 



The FlaheUum Victorice belongs to the truncate division of the genus, 

 and no species of this division have been found fossil ; the existing 

 forms are restricted to the Chinese, Philippine, and Australian seas. ; 



FlaheUum Oambierense is a pedicellate species, and has no closely 

 allied species. 



The Placotroclii are allied to the forms from the Philippine and 

 Chinese seas, and remotely to those I have described from the Mio- 

 cene of the Nivaje shale in San Domingo and in Jamaica. 



The BalanojphyTlia is remotely allied to B. Cumingii, E. and H., of 

 the Philippines, but is of the same generic section as B. prcelonga, 

 Mich., sp., of the Turin Miocene ; it has only a generic relation with 

 the species of the British Crag. 



Finally, the TrocTioseris is without known recent or fossil close allies. 



There are no species amongst these which belong to the genera 

 which characterize the European Miocene, and as the forms belong- 

 to genera still in existence, and represented for the most part in the 

 neighbouring Philippine and Chinese coral seas, there are no data 

 for assigning any particular geologic horizon to them. The facies 

 is certainly very recent, but there are so many difficulties in deciding 

 the correlation of Australian with typical Tertiary strata, that it is 

 advisable to wait for further information before attempting to identify 

 the locality whence the corals were derived by a geologic term. 



2. On the Chalk of tJie Isle of Thanet. By "William Whitakek, 

 B.A. (Lond.), E.Gr.S., of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



Introduction. — Besides Professor Morris's account of the faults in 

 Pegwell Bay* the only note on the Chalk of the Isle of Thanet that I 

 can find is by the late Rev, W. D. Conybeare, who says, " The north- 

 eastern cape, called the North Foreland, forms the loftiest point (of 

 the cliffs) * * * between this point and Margate the lowest strata 

 are exhibited, the Chalk without flints making its appearance : hence 

 the strata gradually decline, though under an imperceptible angle, 

 towards the south-west, in which direction the upper beds of the 

 Chalk sink and disappear, beneath the more recent formationsf." 



* Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. p. 595. 



t ' Geology of England and Wales,' by the Eev. W. D. Conybeare and W. 

 PhiUips (1822), p. 90. 



