﻿Vol. 66.~] LIMESTONE SOUTH OF THE CRAVEN FAULT. 577 



Phillips, unfortunately, did not figure his Syringopora laxa. He 

 gave its characters (op. cit. p. 201) as 



' Very loosely branched, variously coalescing with few or no connecting 

 tubuli.' 



Surely, this is very nearly the ramulosa of Goldfuss. Whatever 

 may be the ultimate conclusion as to the validity of the usually 

 recognized species, it would seem unnecessary to retain S. laxa. 



Lonsdale in 1845 x gave revised diagnoses of the species parallela 

 and distans of Fischer. Of parallela he said : 



1 Tubes slender, nearly parallel, closely fasciculated, rarely branched ; outer 

 surface rugose, inner furrowed longitudinally ; furrows exceeding twelve ; con- 

 necting processes very short, unequally disposed ; internal, funnel-shaped 

 plates very irregular ; medial pipe variable in position and form ; terminal 

 cup deep ; sides furrowed ; intermediate ridges tubercled ; edge smooth, 

 sharp.' 



The foregoing admirable description emphasizes, for the first time 

 so far as I know, the inner furrows. These evidently mean the 

 almost aborted septa, the discovery of which was afterwards claimed 

 by Milne Edwards & Haime. 



Most subsequent authors have accepted parallela as a species, 

 but I fail to see anything in Lonsdale's admirable description that 

 is incompatible with its place in reticulata. The closeness of the 

 tubes is a most variable feature in Syringopora as I know it. 



Lonsdale's diagnosis of S. distans was : 



' Tubes not closely fasciculated, slightly bent ; branches few ; connecting 

 processes distant ; funnel-shaped plates irregular ; medial pipe generally 

 excentric.' (Op. cit. p. 592.) 



And in his comparison of it with parallela he said (loc. cit.) that in 

 IS. distans the tubes were greater, the outer wails thicker, smooth 

 (so far as could be observed), or very slightly traversed by lines of 

 growth, and that the disposition of the internal funnel-shaped 

 plates was exceedingly irregular. 



An excellent specimen of S. distans (Fischer) is exhibited in the 

 British Museum (Natural History), from the Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone of Skidrova (Urals) ; it has large tubes, and is much like the 

 common Craven and Bolland form which is sometimes classified as 

 S. distans. 



The funnel-shaped tabulae and the central or excentric tube are 

 the only points of difference from fairly large forms of undoubted 

 reticulata. In a great number of small coralla of S. reticulata, 

 which I have examined, the tabula? have been fewer in number, and 

 some of them nearly horizontal. Obviously, with very few tabula? 

 there will be no interior tube. 



On the whole, I should be inclined to retain distans, along with 

 reticulata, ramulosa, and geniculata. The four species thus in- 

 stituted up to 1845 would be : S. reticulata, Goldf., 18:26 ; S. ramulosa, 

 Goldf., 1826 ; S. distans (Fischer), 1828 ; and S. geniculata, Phillips, 

 1836. 



1 In Murchison, De Yerneuil, & Keyserling's 'Geology of Russia in Europe 

 . & the Ural Mountains ' 1815, Appendix to vol. i, p. 591, &c. 



