160 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
that the former have leaflets below, and those of the ocean have 
them above (Fig. 72). These leaflets are only expansions of the 
Madrepores. Now, although I have not actually examined these petri- 
fied Mushrooms of the sea, I have no reason to doubt but that they 
are true genera or species of Madrepores, containing, like others, the 
zoophytes which form them. In my travels in Egypt, in 1714 and 
1715, I never heard it said that the Nile could produce them.” In 
Fig. 73. Fungia agaricifovmis (Lamarck). 
this last remark, Peyssonnel makes allusion to the opinion entertained 
by many ancient authors, that the Fungia were productions of the 
Nile. 
The animal is gelatinous or membranous, generally simple, de- 
pressed, and oval, with mouth superior and transverse, in a large disk, 
which is covered by many thick cirrhiform tentacula ; the polypier is 
rendered solid internally by a calcareous solid deposit of a simple 
figure, having a star of radiating, acutely-pointed lamellae above, and 
simple rays, full of wrinkles, beneath. There are nine species, mostly 
