ACCOUNT OF A FOSSIL ZOOPHYTE, ETC. 
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remains of the Elephant, Rhinoceros, Horse, and Deer, and fragments of several 
bones of other Mammalia. 
This Rag-stone bassetts out above the Weald Clay, about four miles to the 
south-east of the town, and thus a great variety of formations may be visited 
with great ease and convenience, offering such facilities for geological research 
as are not often to be met with. 
Alcyonia monilia (Plate 1, Fig. 1) is furnished with a cylindrical stem, 
attached by ramose fibres to the sands on which it grew. It has several lobes 
upon the stem, at irregular distances, and generally terminates in an expanded 
head, often of considerable size, and in shape resembling the Flint-nodules of the 
Chalk. The stem and lobes have a rough uneven surface, covered with papillae. 
A spinous or tuberous structure has been detected in but few specimens. The 
peculiarity of this zoophyte consists in the beaded tentacula, proceeding from the 
stem, lobes, and head, which are sometimes attenuated into cylindrical threads. 
From their great variety of shape and size, they had probably considerable 
powers of extension and contraction. The large expanded head contains, in 
some instances, part of the stem, lobes, and beaded tentacula, folded within it, 
and I conjecture, that in some specimens the whole economy of the zoophyte is 
withdrawn within it, in a similar manner to that of the recent Actinecz. In 
such cases, the specimens appear externally like variously-shaped nodules, but 
on being broken, the tentacula, stem, and lobes may sometimes be seen within. 
This zoophyte is evidently analogous to the Polypi , discovered by Mr. Web¬ 
ster, in the Green-sand of the Isle-of-Wight, and closely assimilates with the 
Polypotkecia from the neighbourhood of Warminster, described by Miss Bennett ; 
but Mr. Webster mentions only the simple lobated specimens “in which from 
two to five or six lobes, closely united together, are found.” 
This is the common appearance, and it is only by a large assortment of speci¬ 
mens that the varieties of shape and figure, described above, can be connected 
so as to justify the conclusion that all belong to the same class. Mr. Webster, 
who inspected some specimens in my collection, instantly recognized the similarity 
of the simple lobated stem with the Isle-of-Wight zoophyte, but the tentaculum, 
he said, was a new discovery, and expressed much interest in it, particularly in 
the folding of the lobes, stem, &c., in the superior head. 
, I find them principally in the upper strata of the Rag-stone, which is arranged 
in alternate layers of arenaceous Lime-stone and a siliceous coarse Sand; the 
fossil occurs in various shapes and states of preservation, depending on the 
stratum in which it is imbedded. The Lime-stone contains the most clearly- 
defined specimens, as the stem is seldom well preserved in the Sand, although the 
large heads are frequently procured from it by their possessing a great portion 
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