41 
figured Plate V. Fig. 1. It must indeed be admitted that it resem- 
bles, in more respects than one, the description given by Helwing of 
this fossil : “ Corallium album superficie figuris asteriformibus pro- 
pemodum obliteratis."’* From the accurate observations of Fougt, it 
appears that this is a proliferous madrepore, a fresh series of stars 
proceeding from the centre of the disks of the previously existing 
stars. 'I* 
Madrepora galaxea, m. faviolata, and m. pleiades, I have repeatedly 
seen so far decomposed, as to have thereby acquired very much the 
appearance of a fossil ; but this state might have been entirely occa- 
sioned by long exposure to the weather, or to the action of water, after 
they had been deprived of the influence of the living principle. With 
the forms of mad. hyades, m. latebrosa, and m. arenosa, I am not 
sufficiently acquainted to enable me to speak with respect to their 
existence in a mineralized state. 
Plate V. Fig. 8, is the representation of a most beautiful specimen of 
a fossil madrepore from Ribieze, in Transylvania. This coral, formed of 
cylindrical stars with elevated margins, and having broad concavely 
sulcated and radiated interstices, bears somewhat of a resemblance to 
the madrepora radiata of Solander and Ellis. The coral has undergone 
a very considerable change ; it being now a carbonate of lime, much 
more friable than chalk. 
Plate V. Fig. 4, represents another specimen from the shores of 
Lincolnshire, which is so changed as almost to be reduced to the state 
of chalk. It bears some resemblance to madrepora annularis of Solander 
and Ellis, which appears to be merely a variety of the mad. radiata. 
Madrepora papillosa, which is allied to, and perhaps is, the madrepora 
muricata, in an incipient, is hardly to be distinguished in a mineral, state. 
Madrepora polygama, in Gmelin^s Systema Naturae Linnsei, is certainly 
* Lithographiae Angerburgicee. Pag. 53. f Amoenitat. Acad. Fig. VIII. No. 2, 
VOL. II. G 
