PART 3.] Foote: Cretaceous Fossils from TrickiuojMt// District. 
159 
Rough Notes on the Cretaceous Fossils prom Trichinopoly District, collected 
IN 1877-78, 1)1) R. Bruce Foote, F.G.S., Geological Survey of India. 
The following notes have reference chiefly to the fossils I collected in 1877 
from the Utatar and Arialiir groups, at Utatur, Maravatiir, Odium, Arriahir, 
and Malliir, Avhich alone received any careful examination. The fossils from the 
other localities received as a whole merely cursoiy inspection while being-arrang-ed 
for numbering. The term “new species’’ that will be found used hero and there 
implies only that the fossil does not agi’ee with the figures and descriptions of 
species described by Dr. Stoliezka in the Pala3ontologia Indica. 
Sponges .—A special feature of the collection is the large number of sponges it 
contains as compared with the far larger eolleetion originally made at the time 
the geological survey of the district was being carried out. Dr. Stoliezka figures 
only two, which he refers to the genus Siphonia. 
Among the sponges collected by me arc numerous specimens belonging to the 
very important and characteristically cretaceous family of Ventriculites. Those 
were found mostly weathered out of a bod of limestone south-west of Maravatiir 
(Z/Oc. 10), very low down in the Dtatur group. They belong apparently to 
three species, or vai-ieties, of different form and texture (e.y.. Nos. 5, 6, 7, 
18—-‘20, 45 and 49). Many show the characteristic network extremely -well (e.y.. 
No. 49). 
With these Ventriculites occurred several specimens belonging to another 
group {? Spongites), showing quite dissimilar texture (Nos. 8 to 14). 
The same bed of limestone, which forms a small knoll, yielded a considerable 
number of other fossils, all of which were collected from a very limited space, only 
a few dozen squai’O yards in extent. The most numerous of those were spines 
and plates of Cidarids; Bolemnites were found in considerable nurabei-s; a 
few small Ammonites, with other shells and corals, were also obtained. The 
large Pecten (No. 50) came from another bed rather nearer to Maravatur. 
A numerically much larger number of sjionges, of a small cup-shaped group, 
Naicolum “sponge w'as obtained from one of the lowest beds of the Utatur 
bed.” group, exposed at head of a gully opening eastward, a few 
yards east of the old Madras road, fths of a mile south-south-west of Nai- 
colum (hoc. 3). These were found with a great number of other fossils on the 
weathered outcrop of an argillo-calcarcous sandstone. With the cup sponges 
was one specimen of a mamillated species (No. 278). A largo specimen (No. 32) 
of clavate form was also found weathered out of the same bod, but originally 
derived without doubt from the coral reef limestone at base of the Utatur 
group. ^ 
Two other sponges wore obtained from the middle part of the Utatur group 
exposed north and north-west of Odium {Loc. 21). Of these, which are numbered 
14 and 15, the latter appears to be a Siphoma. 
Vertebrate remains .—A number of largo vertebrae, apparently reptilian, very 
like those of IcUhyosaums, were found by mo in the clays north-east of Utatiir. 
Nine out of sixteen lay together, in apposition, when I found them, but were 
