6Q4: barrande's "colonies" in 



lijghly-organized floweriug plant in full flower. The specimen, as you 

 are aware, presents no structure ; it is an impression, and therefore I can 

 only judge of its possible affinities from appearances. Now, there is 

 nothing whatever known amongst Cryptogamic plants having the most 

 remote resemblance to this Aniholithes, nor amongst Gymnospermous 

 Phaenogams, but there are, both amongst Monocotyledons and Dico- 

 tyledons, genera to which it may plausibly be compared. I allude in 

 the former class to genera of Bromeliacece, Scitajninece, and Orckidece ; 

 in the latter to Lahiatce^ Loheliacece, and some others. Upon the whole, 

 the resemblance is strongest to Bromelio.cece^ amongst which the genus 

 Pitcairnia is ranked, and which suggested the specific name to Lindley." 

 Another anthoiite, apparently of a different species, found by Mr. 

 Prestwich in the coal strata of Coalbrook Dale, and described by Mr. 

 Morris under the name of Aniholites onomalus, is figured in the Trans- 

 actions of the Geological Society of London (2d ser., vol. 5, pi. xxxviii. 

 fig. 5). It is quite unlike any thing known in the Gymnospermous or 

 Cryptogamous classes, and greatly resembles, in what is supposed to be 

 the evolution of its floral organs, the ordinary phsenogamous type. 

 Nevertheless, as both Mr. Robert Brown and Dr. Hooker still regard 

 certain terminal appendages belonging to it as enigmatical, we cannot 

 declare that the affinities of this curious genus are yet made out. 



SILURIAN AND CAMBRIAN ROCKS, AND M. BARRANDe's THEORY 

 OF COLONIES. 



Since I alluded in the text (p. 441) to M. Barrande's discoveries in 

 Bohemia, in reference to the Paleozoic rocks, I have enjoyed, during 

 the summer of 1856, the high privilege of visiting in his company the 

 field of his successful labors near Prague, of observing the order and 

 succession of the rocks as interpreted by him, and of inspecting the vast 

 collections which he has accumulated in the course of more than twenty 

 years. These stores are comparable in number and importance rather 

 to the results of a Government survey than to the acquisitions of a pri- 

 vate individual. More than 1500 species of fossil invertebrata, previously 

 unknown, with the exception of a few of the Brachiopoda, and all be- 

 longing to strata older than the Devonian, have rewarded his skilful search. 



M. Barrande has shown, in a recent treatise, that the fauna called by 

 him primordial, a fauna contemporaneous in date with the Cambrian 

 rocks of Great Britain, was also coeval with the fossils of the Alum 

 Schists, and limestones of Sweden, so well described by M. Angelin. 

 In both countries, this fauna, the most ancient yet known, consists 

 almost exclusively of trilobites, scarce any progress having yet been 

 made in bringing to light any mollusca and echinoderms of the same 

 period. Enough, however, has been done to show that distinct natural 



