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CARBONIFEROUS AND PERMIAN FORAMINIFERA. 



Mr. Moore, and in the provisional report, which was hastily drawn up to be in time 

 for the Meeting of the British Association for that year, there is much that now needs 

 revision. The subarenaceous imperforate tests of nearly all the specimens then examined 

 suggested their affinity to the Liassic genus Involutina, and names were assigned to the 

 different species on this supposition. The priority of Professor Phillips's generic term 

 Endothyra (since ascertained), by supplying a name for the Rotaliform series, renders it 

 unnecessary, for the moment, to weigh minutely the value of the characters of Terquem's 

 Liassic type, which at present appears to rest on a somewhat indefinite and unsatisfactory 

 basis. 1 As will appear in due course, a considerable number of the specific names 

 originally applied to Mr. Moore's specimens, may still be used without alteration. 



In 1871 Mr. E. Parfitt, of Exeter, published a notice of a " Species of Arenaceous 

 Foraminifer (?) from the Carboniferous Limestone of Devonshire," describing appearances 

 in the weathered surfaces of certain limestones, which appeared to him to suggest the 

 remains of a fossil Protozoon, either sponge or foraminifer, but most probably an 

 arenaceous foraminifer. I confess that, upon very careful examination, after treatment in 

 every way that could be thought of as likely to bring out structural features, I have been 

 unable to find any satisfactory evidence of organic origin in the specimens kindly furnished 

 to me by Mr. Parfitt ; and as the matter so rests for the present, it is not needful to enter 

 upon its further discussion. Transparent sections presented no unusual lithological 

 characters, none that could not be accounted for without the introduction of any organic 

 hypothesis. 



Three papers published between the years 1871 and 1874, viz., "On Saccammina 

 Carteri," " On Archsediscus Karreri," and " On a True Carboniferous Nummulite," 

 together with the lists of species from Scottish localities, included in the Geological 

 Survey publications relating to the Lanarkshire coal-field and in the papers of Messrs. 

 Young and Armstrong, may be passed over with bare mention, as they practically form a 

 part of the present Monograph. 



Such, in outline, is the history of research in respect to the smaller Rhizopoda of the 

 Carboniferous and Permian Epochs : that of the genus Fusulina, with its attendant 

 zoological and geological problems, remains to be written. 



1 The recent paper by Herr L. G. Bornemann, jun. (" Ueber die Foraminiferengattung Involutina "), 

 notwithstanding. This, though it contains observations of considerable value, is far from satisfactory in 

 many ways, chiefly perhaps in the estimate of the relative importance of minute characters, and hence in 

 the zoological treatment of the type. 



