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CARBONIFEROUS AND PERMIAN FORAMINIFERA. 



adopted in the present work for the particular modification which best agrees in general 

 contour and septation with the figured section. 



In 1849 MM. Rouillier and Vosinsky contributed to the 'Bulletin of the Society of 

 Naturalists of Moscow' an account of a supposed Nummulite {Num. antiquior) from the 

 white limestone of Miatschkovo. The paper is one of some interest, although, as 

 suggested by d'Eichwald, who a few years later had the opportunity of seeing the original 

 specimens, the authors were probably incorrect in assigning them to the genus 

 Nummulina. 



In the same year Prof. F. M'Coy described under the name Nodosaria fusulinaformis 

 a Foraminifer abounding in the Carboniferous Limestone at Shivey in the north of 

 Ireland. It is not improbable that this fossil may be the same as Saccammina Carteri, 

 but the very brief description unaccompanied by any figure is scarcely sufficient to establish 

 the fact, in the absence of collateral evidence. 



Meanwhile the Foraminifera of the Permian limestones had begun to attract the 

 attention of pataontologists and in the year 1848 Dr. H. B. Geinitz and Prof. William 

 King described, independently, the species now well known as Trochammina pusilla. 

 Two years later (1850) Prof. T. Rupert Jones contributed to Prof. King's 'Monograph 

 of the Permian Fossils of England' descriptions and figures of some half dozen species. 

 In 1854 Prof. Reuss added a single form from the Zechstein of Wetterau, and in the 

 following year Dr. R. Richter, of Saalfeld, summarised the species found in the Zechstein 

 of Thuringia, but without the addition of anything new. 



Turning again to the Carboniferous fauna. In 1854 was published Ehrenberg's 

 ' Mikrogeologie ;' and in 1860 d'Eichwald's ' Lethsea Rossica.' In these two works 

 may be found details of almost all the observations of any value which had been made 

 up to that time on the microzoa of the Carboniferous limestones of central and southern 

 Russia. The method of observation and of illustration adopted by the veteran micro- 

 scopist are very unfortunate so far as the Foraminifera are concerned, and in this 

 department of natural history at least, whether in respect to recent or fossil forms, his 

 actual results must be accepted in some measure independently of his zoological inferences. 

 His nomenclature also needs considerable modification before it is intelligible to those who 

 are accustomed to the generally received generic and specific terms. Messrs. Parker and 

 Rupert Jones (' Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' 4th ser., vols, ix and x) have performed 

 the task of translating into the language of modern zoology the terminology of Dr. 

 Ehrenberg's various memoirs, including that of the 'Mikrogeologie,' which may be 

 regarded as the summary of his labours on fossil Rhizopoda. Unfortunately the beautiful 

 figures of Carboniferous Foraminifera in the latter work, excepting those of an interesting 

 group of FusulincB, are of little scientific value. Few of the representations of the minuter 

 forms can be identified, for want of detail in the drawing ; and, apart from the Fusulina 

 referred to, only a single recognisable new species is gained to science. 



D'Eichwald's synopsis of the Russian Carboniferous Foraminifera is based chiefly on 



