119 
de dessous, & forment en traversans le bord, & en tirant vers le centre, 
une quantite des plis irreguliers. Au milieu de sa base ce fongite a une 
grande & profonde excavation/'* 
The specimen, represented Plate XL Fig, 1, formed a part of Mr. 
Strange’s collection, and was obtained from Switzerland; it bears a 
very close resemblance to a fossil of Bourguet’s, described as Le 
Cariophylloide k grandes Raies.T' Like the preceding fossil, its substance 
is divided into thick plicae, rarely ramifying, which are connected 
together by very slender transverse filaments, very thinly disposed. 
As in the former fossil, so also in this, a large cavity appears to have 
existed in its superior part, but which is now filled by the matter of 
its matrix, which, as well as the substance of the fossil itself, appears 
to be chiefly calcareous. Possessing only one specimen of this fossil, 
I was loth to add it to the numbers which I had devoted to the 
examination of their internal structure. By an examination, however, 
with a lens, I was enabled to discover that a spongy texture existed 
in the substance of the plicae. 
Another specimen, of a similar substance and from the same place 
as the preceding fossil, and, certainly, though not obviously, of the same 
species, is depicted Plate XL Fig, 3, In this specimen, the lamellae 
are much smaller, they ramify more frequently, and are connected by 
much more numerous transverse processes, which, as in the preceding 
fossil, cross the perpendicular lamellae, nearly at right angles, and 
thereby frequently form square or rhomboidal interstices. The spongy 
texture is very distinctly seen, by the aid of a lens, in the lamellae of 
this fossil also. 
Another elegant variety of this species of fossil alcyonium is shewn 
Plate XL Fig, 6, This fossil possesses somewhat of the form of an 
inverted slender cone, the point of which answers to the pedicle, and the 
base to the central opening. The surface shews very distinctly, in many 
* Monumens des Catastrophes, &c. Tome II, Parte II, P, 50. 
f Traits des Petrifications, Planche II. Fig. 16. 
