﻿March, 1858.] 



ELLIOTT SOCIETY. 



283 



quently had no outlet or inter-communication on the surface, and 

 were probably only sinks on a large scale, communicating with 

 each other by underground channels. On the inclined sides of 

 these sinks frequently cropped out the calcareous rock which 

 formed the underlying stratum. Sometimes imbedded in it were 

 large masses of silicious rock resembling the buhrstone of Aiken, 

 S, C. Both the marl and the buhrstone were fossiliferous. The 

 remains of Mollusca were generally in bad preservation, but there 

 were large numbers of casts of the species of Echinoderm pre- 

 sented to the collection. This species Mr. McCrady believed to 

 be the same as that described by Bouve, as Pygorhynchus 

 Gouldii and was a congener of Pygorhynchus crucifer and P. rugo- 

 sus of Dr. Ed. Ravenel, u Catalogue of the Echini Fossil and 

 Recent of South Carolina." 



Mr McCrady stated, however, that the genus was quite distinct 

 from Pygorhynchus, which was almost exclusively an European 

 genus. He would characterize it as follows: 



Ravenelia, nov. gen. 



Form rather depressed — no anal facet, hinder end of shell hori- 

 zontally trenchant, anus supramarginal, generally surmounted by 

 a transverse labium. Mouth in advance of the centre, surrounded 

 by prominent bosses, and a distinct oral roset. Nether surface, 

 which is slightly concave, more or less beset with irregular tortuous 

 rugosities, which are the elevated spaces between the deep-set 

 knops, which must have borne larger spines than any other por- 

 tion of the shell. The ambulacra are transversely ribbed, and 

 have the pores of the outer row of a lengthened slit-like form. 



Three species viz : Ravenelia crucifer. Eocene, S. C. 



" rugosa. " " 



" Gouldii. " Ga. and Fla. 



The two species from South Carolina are characteristic of the 

 Eocene period, and the genus has not been found above the Eocene. 

 And it is probable that R. Gouldii is not an exception. 



I have given to the genus the name of Dr. Edmund Ravenel, 

 the discoverer of two of the three species which belong to it, and 

 an observer to whose zeal our State is almost entirely indebted for 

 the knowledge of its Echinoderms. 



