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PALEONTOLOGY OF NEW YORK. 
Hippurites and Radiolites, have been carefully elaborated by Waagen, who 
arrives at the conclusion that they are of brachiopodous nature, the normal 
brachiopod characters being somewhat obscured by their mode of growth. 
From the accompanying figures, taken from Waagen’s illustration of the genus, 
it'appears that the valves when well preserved show a distinct hinge-line, faint 
articulating processes and muscular impressions, all more similar to the corre¬ 
sponding structures in the brachiopods, than to anything occurring among the 
corals or Rudista. If this evidence of the brachiopodous nature of these fossils 
prove convincing, the remarkable development of the cellular testaceous tissue 
of the pedicle-valve which produces the striking external resemblance to a 
coral, is certainly a no more extreme deviation from the brachiopod-type than 
are such bodies as Hippurites, Caprotina, Radiolites, etc., from the type of 
lamellibranchiate structure. The shells were evidently attached by solid 
fixation at the apex of the pedicle-valve, and this attachment strengthened by 
the epithecal rootlets extending downward from the walls of the valve, simi¬ 
lar to those in Omphyma and other corals. 
In regard to the taxonomic position of Richthofenia, Waagen says: 
“ To sum up all that has been said on the atfinities of Richthofenia, we have 
found that these shells most probably belong to the Brachiopoda, but that they 
constitute so strong a group within this class, that though they may be 
assignable to the Arthropomata, yet they can not be placed immediately in 
the vicinity of any known group. They show on the one hand external affinities 
to the corals, and on the other structural affinities to the Pelecypoda. This 
conflicting evidence alone will justify my considering them at least as a proper 
sub-order, for which I introduce the name of ‘ Coralliopsidad ” 
Two species of this genus have been described, the Anomia Lawrenciana, de 
Koninck, and R. Sinensis, Waagen. Both of them probably occur in the Car¬ 
boniferous beds of the Salt-Range of India, but the latter is the form upon 
which the genus was founded by Kayser, and was obtained from the upper 
Carboniferous rocks of Lo-Ping, China. 
