NIAGARA GROUP. 
119 
510. 1. SYRINGOPORA'? MULTICAULIS. 
Pi. XXXIII. Fig'. 3 a - h. 
Tubes simple or aggregate, eaespitose, increasing by lateral budding, connected among them¬ 
selves by lateral processes, at unequal intervals, externally transversely striate, internally radiate 
with about fourteen or sixteen distinct rays ; transverse septa often nearly direct or ascending 
towards the centre, and complicated with the lamellae. The entire interior of the tube some¬ 
times filled with the oblique ascending septa. 
This coral consists of an aggregation of tubes, which, beginning from a small base or root, 
have increased by lateral budding to a large mass. The processes uniting the tubes laterally are 
not numerous or distinct, and they often appear as if parallel and disconnected. In many in¬ 
stances there appears to be regular intervals of budding, where a single tube throws out two 
or three buds at about the same elevation. From this mode of increase, the mass spreads 
rapidly from the base, and becomes hemispherical. Sometimes, however, a large number of 
tubes grow up together nearly parallel to each other, and the mass has a less hemispheric form. 
When the coral is calcareous, the stellate tubes are very easily discerned on the weathered sur¬ 
faces ; but in other cases they are solid, or irregularly cellular in the interior. The external 
surface rarely or never shows any longitudinal striae ; but the surface, in calcareous specimens, 
is distinctly striated and wrinkled transversely, and in siliceous specimens a sort of granular 
surface is often preserved. In such instances, there is often a longitudinal arrangement of the 
granules corresponding to the lamellae. 
Fig. 3 a. A small part of a larger group of these tubes from a siliceous specimen. 
Fig. 3 A A transverse section, showing the ends of the tubes. 
Fig. 3 c, d. The end of a tube, natural size and magnified. 
Fig. 3 e. A separated tube, showing contraction at intervals, with a shorter one at the base, and 
a bud proceeding apparently from between them. 
Fig. 3 f. A longitudinal section from the top of the cup downwards, showing in the upper part 
the simple rays, and below the complicated oblique septa. 
Fig. 3 g. A longitudinal section of a tube, the middle of the figure reaching to the centre of the 
tube, and showing oblique septa, while at the two ends only the lamellae are seen. 
Fig. 3 A. A longitudinal section of several tubes, showing the interior structure. 
In all the specimens which have been polished down to the centre, there is an appearance of 
transverse septa ascending towards the centre and crossing the lamellae, or uniting them. Some¬ 
times these specimens present the appearance of having a central axis, which^arises apparently 
from a partial involution of the lamellae at their junction. 
Position and locality. In the lower part of the Niagara limestone at Lockport, and in the 
central part of the same limestone in Barre, Orleans county. 
