112 BRITISH FOSSIL CORALS. 



Corallum fasciculate, forming a globose tuft, which in some specimens appears to be 

 almost a foot high, but was only four or five inches in the largest specimens seen by us. 

 Corallitcs very tall, straight or slightly bent, almost cylindrical or somewhat prisraatical, 

 dichotomising at long intervals, very closely set and spreading out like a sheaf laterally and 

 upwards. IFalls presenting circular tumefactions more or less characterised, and annular 

 expansions, which sometimes extend from one corallite to another by means of small conical 

 processes, somewhat in the same manner as in Stjringopora (figs. 1 and \d); but these lateral 

 buttresses are compact and not tubular, as in the latter corals. Costal stria3 delicate, of 

 equal size, rather closely set, and but little prominent. Calices of various forms, sometimes 

 almost circular, sometimes oval, almost triangular or subpolygonal (fig. le). Columella 

 quite rudimentary. From sixteen to twenty septa, large or small alternately, and closely 

 set ; the smaller ones bending towards the principal ones in a somewhat irregular manner ; 

 septal systems not distinctly recognisable in the adult specimens. Diameter of the coral- 

 lites and of their calice about two thirds of a line. 



This fossil is found near Bath. The specimens here described were communicated to 

 us by Mr. Bowerbank and Mr. Pratt. William Smith, who first discovered the species, 

 mentions its existence at Comb-Down, Broadfield Farm, and Westwood ; Professor J. 

 Phillips appears to have found it at Terrington, and ]\Ir. Morris says that it has been met 

 with at Farley Downs, Hampton Cliff', and Murrel, near Bradford. It is found also in 

 France, at Langrune, Luc, and Ranville, near Caen, and according to M. Michelin, at 

 Billy, near Chanceaux, Departement de la Cote d'Or. 



In general this coral is met with in a state so modified by the process of fossilisation, 

 that it is very difficult to recognise its real zoological affinities. Lamouroux, who described 

 it as the type of his genus Eunomia, was only acquainted with specimens in which extra- 

 neous matter had been first deposited around and between the corallites, so as to form a 

 cast, and in which the corallites themselves had been afterwards completely destroyed and 

 replaced by a distinct stony deposit, so that the original structure had completely disap- 

 peared. The appearance thus produced naturally induced Lamouroux to suppose that this 

 coral was nearly allied to Tiih'qjora, and Blainville considered it as being the cast of a 

 Favosites. But M. Michelin, having found some specimens in which the septa had been 

 partially preserved, recognised their affinity to Schweigger's Lithodendron. In our 

 Monograph of the AstreidsB, and in the introduction to this work, the genus Eunomia was, 

 however, still admitted on account of a peculiar disposition of the epitheca, which appeared 

 in some casts to distinguish it from Calamojihijllla. But the British specimens conunu.nicated 

 to us by Mr. Pratt, and some finely preserved specimens from Normandy, which we have 

 seen in M. D'Orbigny's collection, prove that no sufficient grounds for a distinction of 

 that kind do in reality exist, and that the Eunomia of Lamouroux must no longer be 

 separated from CalamopJi^Uia. 



C. radiata is the smallest species known, and it differs also from the other species of the 

 same genus by the low number of its septa. 



