13 
Dr. Woodward describes “ a coralloid body, excepting the colour, 
which is grey, resembling the tubularia purpurea of Ferrante Imperato. 
Found in the rubble of a lead mine, near Charterhouse, Mendip, So- 
mersetshire.”* But from the negative evidence of almost every other 
writer ; and from a careful examination of the various fossil tubipores, 
in diiferent collections, I am led to suppose, that the organ-pipe coral 
is rarely met with in a mineral state. The specific character of this 
coral is that of being formed of tubes, connected in bundles, by 
distant, transverse, membranous plates ; and, as has been shewn by our 
celebrated countryman Ellis, when an opening is made into these tubes, 
they are found to be jointed and to communicate with one another 
by means of geniculated pipes, which pass through each of them, and 
are radiated at their joints.-f The transverse partitions, or plates, by 
which the perpendicular pipes are connected, appear also to serve the 
purpose of supporting the lateral connecting pipes. The different parts 
here alluded to, are represented Plate III. Fig. 2, in a figure taken 
from the twenty-seventh plate of the work to which we have just 
referred. In this representation, the internal pipe may be seen dilating, 
and then radiating into several small pipes, which pass through the 
connecting plates. This figure is introduced here for the purpose of 
affording the more easy comparison with those fossils which have been 
supposed to belong to this species. 
The fossil which approaches the nearest to the tuhipora musica, is that 
which is represented Plate I. Fig. 1. It is imbedded in a dark brown 
lime-stone, from Derbyshire ; the substance of which is almost entirely 
formed of this tubipore, as may be seen, by the quantity of projecting 
portions on the upper and on the fore part. 
In this fossil there are several circumstances, in which an agreement 
may be observed, between it and the organ-pipe coral; yet, in other 
* Dr. Woodward’s Catalogue, Vol. II. Page 12. 
t The Natural History of Zoophytes, by John Ellis, and Daniel Solander, m.d. P.143. 
