196 E. F. TOMES ON THE GEEAT-OOLITE MADEEPOEAEIA. 



tainly did not throw more light upon the question, because they oc- 

 curred from shallow water to very great depths, even to 3000 fathoms. 



Prof. Peestwich said that Mr. Brown's collection, mentioned by 

 the author, came not from two horizons, but all from one, at a spot 

 about 2 miles "W. of Cirencester, in a zone about 6-18 inches thick, 

 near the top of the Great Oolite. 



Prof. P. M. Duncan- confirmed the statement of Prof. Prestwich 

 about the horizon from which Mr. Brown's collection was made. 

 These corals, described by Mr. Tomes, were from lenticular coral- 

 beds, not from reefs. They could hardly be very deep-sea formations, 

 from the oolite contained in them, which seemed at the present time 

 to be a shore-formation. It was a mistake to suppose that live 

 reef-building corals ever occurred below about 25 fathoms. It was 

 to be regretted that a good writer such as the author did not come 

 more frequently among his fellow workers ; for he would then have 

 learnt that many of the statements made by him about calicular 

 gemmation and fissiparity were already in print, and had been so 

 from the da) T s of Milne-Edwards. Pissiparity and gemmation were 

 quite distinct things. Some corals keep the figure of 8 described 

 by the author*; some depart from it during subsequent growth. 

 Unfortunately M. de Fromentel, referred to by the author, was not a 

 student of recent corals. Thecosmilian forms had been found exhi- 

 biting fissiparity ; these had been actually renamed by Mr. Tomes, 

 though the speaker had already assigned them to an existing genus. 

 He felt doubts as to the validity of some of the genera proposed by 

 Mr. Tomes. The coral could not be named Confusastrcea without a 

 section ; it presented some characters allied to Favia. He called 

 attention to the so-called Cyathophorai, which had lost their' septa 

 and all their internal characters. Sections, he would observe, were 

 absolutely necessary for the study of fossil corals. 



