798 DR. G. J. HINDE ON RECEPTACULITIDA. 
In the ‘ Paleontology of New York,’ vol. i. (1847) p. 68, t. 24, 
f. 3, Prof. J. Hall refers, with a query, to Receptaculites Neptunc, 
Defr., some fragmentary specimens from the Trenton limestone of 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 
In the ‘Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota’ 
(1852), p. 586, t. 2B, f. 13, D. Dale Owen refers another example of 
this group, from Lower Silurian limestones in Lowa, to a new genus 
of Foraminifera, under the name of Selenoides iowensis. Only the 
concave base of the specimen is figured; but as the upper portion is 
described as dome-shaped, it probably belongs to the genus Jscha- 
dites. According to Miller’s ‘Catalogue of American Fossils,’ the 
same author, D. Dale Owen, had previously described, in 1840 and 
1844, three other species of Receptaculites, which bear the names 
of FR. dactioloides, R. reticulatus, and R. sulcatus; but the works 
containing the descriptions are nct accessible to me. 
In 1859, J. W. Salter gives descriptions and figures in ‘ Canadian 
Organic Remains,’ Dec.1. p. 48, t. 10, of two disk-shaped specimens 
of Receptaculites; one, R. occidentalis, from Trenton limestone at 
Pauquette’s Rapids, on the Ottawa, the other, R. australis, from 
Upper Silurian strata of New South Wales. Salter regarded these 
bodies as allied to the Foraminiferal genus Orbitolites, and stated 
that the rhomboidal plates and the columns, which in these speci- 
mens are of silex, represented the spaces formerly occupied by the 
animal sarcode. Salter figures and refers to four connecting pro- 
cesses or stolons given off from the columns, and also indicates the 
perforations in the plate of the inner or upper surface. 
D’Eichwald in ‘ Lethzea Rossica’ (1860), p. 427, brings under the 
family of the Receptaculitide the following genera, Receptaculites, 
Tetragonis, Mastopora, Escharipora, and Ischadites. The family is 
regarded as belonging to the Anthozoa, and its structure is stated to 
consist of very regularly arranged cells or tubes which appear to be 
covered by a corneous operculum. In addition to the species men- 
tioned by the author in the ‘ Urwelt Russlands,’ there are here 
rurther enumerated, R. orbis (=Escharites forniculosus, Schlot.), 
from the Orthoceras-Kalk of Baltischport; Tetragonis suleata and 
T. parvipora, which, judging from the figures, do not belong to the 
family at all, and Jschadites Hichwaldi, O. Schmidt, and J. altaccus, 
Eichw. Spheronites tessellatus, Phill.,is stated to approach near to 
Ischadites. The genera Mastopora, Kichw., and Escharipora, Hall, 
do not appear to me to be in any way allied to the Receptaculitide. 
Mr. W. Pengelly, in the ‘ Geologist’ (1861), vol. iv. p. 340, t. 5, 
figures a specimen of Spheronites tessellatus, Phill., showing the 
inner surface divided into a network of quadrilateral meshes by the 
interlacing of what may be termed vertical and horizontal mbs. 
Pengelly regards the form as a sponge, and applies to it the generic 
name Spherospongia. 
In the same year in which Pengelly employed the term Sphero- 
spongia for the Spheronites tessellatus, Phill., J. W. Salter, referring 
to the same form (‘Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great 
Britain ; the Geology of the neighbourhood of Edinburgh,’ 1861, 
