PLATE CLXXIV. 



An elegantly-formed Madrepore, of a delicate white colour, 

 faintly tinted with a lacteous or milky hue : the starry cells are 

 somewhat angular, and are disposed in some degree irregularly, but 

 not so vaguely as to destroy or injure the effect of their general 

 symmetry. The species inhabits the American seas. 



It has been stated by Linnaeus and others, that this species 

 occurs in a fossil state — in a buried state it may \ the term fossilized is 

 much too indefinite in the present era : it is possible, and indeed not 

 improbable, that by some recent convulsion the earth has undergone, 

 this species of Madrepore may have been deposited in the ground, or 

 left in lands deserted by its former seas, but this, in the language of 

 science, cannot deserve the appellation of being fossil. We have no 

 idea of the species existing in a mineralized state. 



