CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY. 67 



4. XOTE Oi\ THE GEOLOGICAL RA^^GE OF THE GENUS 

 RECEPTACULITES IN AMERICAN PALAEOZOIC STRATA. 



The original specimens upon wliicli the genus of M. de France 

 was founded, are said to have come from the Devonian rocks of 

 Belgium. Mr. Salter, who has written upon the genus so late as 

 1859, does not mention its occurrence in the older rocks of Eu- 

 rope ; remarking that "it is known in the Silurian strata of Au- 

 *' stralia and in the northern parts of the American continent, but 

 " has not yet been detected in the strata of that age in Britain." 



The first notice of its occurrence in this country appeared (so 

 far as I know) in the first volume of the Paleeontology of New- 

 York, published in 1847 ; where I referred, with doubt, a species 

 from the Trenton limestone to the European species Receptaculites 

 neptuni. The species described by Mr. Salter is likewise from the 

 Trenton limestone group of Canada. 



In the Galena limestone of the Trenton group in the Northwest, 

 there is a large species of this genus of very common occurrence ; 

 and in the same rock are three other species. One of these was 

 referred by Dr. D. D. Owen to the Coscinopora sulcata of Goldfuss ; 

 and a smaller form was figured by the same author, in his Report 

 of 1844, as Orhiculite^l reticulata^ which was subsequently made 

 the type of a new Genus Selenoides, showing the views of that 

 writer on the relations of these fossils. Accompanying the Annual 

 Report of Progress in the Geological Survey of Wisconsin for 

 1860 (published 1861), I have described four well-marked species 

 as occurring in the Galena or Leadbearing limestone, which is of 

 Lower Silurian age ; and two species from the Racine limestone, 

 which is of the age of the Niagara limestone of New-York : and 

 I have lately described a third species from Indiana, in strata of 

 the age of the Niagara group.*' 



I have long known a species in the Lower Helderberg group, 

 which was described by Eaton in his Geological Text-book as 

 Coscinopora infundihuliformis. The form is oval or subcircular, 

 depressed, concave in the middle, and gradually rising for about 

 two-thirds of the distance towards the margin, when it curves 



* Transactions of the Albany Institute, Vol. iv. I have likewise some imperfect and 

 partially crystalline specimens from the upper part of the Cincinnati Blue limestone, 

 which may prove to bo of this genus. 



