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A MONOGRAPH OF YORKSHIRE CARBONIFEROUS AND PERMIAN POLYZOA. 
PART I. BY GEORGE ROBERT VINE. 
I. — Introduction. 
A monograph of Yorkshire Carboniferous Polyzoa, will be, 
speaking generally, a monograph of nearly the whole of British 
species. There are a few forms found elsewhere, which, up to date, 
I have not detected in my Yorkshire material, but when we consider 
that only a few samples of our Yorkshire shales have been, as yet, 
persistently searched for the more minute fossils, we need not be 
surprised at that. Ordinary fossil collectors in the Limestone districts 
have secured many examples of Fenestelki and Polypora, but the 
great mass of Carboniferous Polyzoa are small, and apparently insig- 
nificant, hence it is only those who study microscopic organisms who 
are brought into contact with the fragments found in shale washings. 
If the whole of the species, however, are not found in the York- 
shire Limestones and Shales, the genera are, and to a large extent 
the fades of the Yorkshire species are peculiar, and thereby merit 
special recognition. Certainly on this head, I have done justice to 
Yorkshire examples in the pages of this Journal, but my previous 
work can only be regarded as a catalogue of the species, and not a 
monograph. In this higher sense a true monograph should embrace 
all previous work, and the description of the forms should be full and 
complete up to date, and the illustrations, superficial and structural, 
should also be ample. So far as I am aware no attempt has yet been 
made to give to the scientific world a monograph of British Carbon- 
iferous forms, and it is only just recently that monographs of American 
Carboniferous Polyzoa are being brought to the front by the Palaeon- 
tologists of the various Geological Surveys. The forthcoming Keport 
of the Geological Survey of Illinois will contain twenty-six plates of 
Carboniferous Polyzoa alone, besides seventeen plates of Devonian 
and Silurian forms, illustrative of species found in the varied strata 
of the same State. Most of the other papers which Mr. E. 0. Uirich 
will refer to in his noble work, must be regarded in a similar light 
