Volume 2

Organic remains of a former world. An examination of the mineralized remains of the vegetables and animals of the antediluvian world; generally termed extraneous fossils / By James Parkinson.

  • Parkinson, James, 1755-1824.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organic remains of a former world. An examination of the mineralized remains of the vegetables and animals of the antediluvian world; generally termed extraneous fossils / By James Parkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hollowed out towards the centre. The rays composing the star, and which converge from the edge towards the centre, are dentated and are of two orders; the larger being placed alternately with the smaller. The representation, Plate IV. Fig. 6, yields a very correct idea of the appearance presented by the disk of this fossil. Whilst examining the various specimens of fossil madrepores in my possession, I was very much struck with the beautiful appearance of the turbinated madreporite from Sweden, which is figured Plate IV. Fig. 11; and particularly observed, that the rays had an appearance totally different from those of any other which I had noticed. The form of this madreporite places it indubitably among the turbinated madrepores; it gradually narrowing and terminating in a curved pedicle. Innumerable striae, which are intersected by horizontal ridges and depressions, most closely and neatly arranged, mark the whole of its inferior surface. The disk derives a rich appearance from the perpendicular radiating laminae which form the star, being arranged alternately in a larger and smaller size, and being also closely beset with rounded annular pro- tuberances ; the whole of the superior part of the coral bearing an exact resemblance to the disk of the porpital madrepore. Indeed, so exactly does it resemble this fossil, that I feel no hesitation in considering them as being both of the same species ; and as differing from each other only in their having undergone the lapidifying process at different stages of their growth. Nor do I perceive in the porpital madrepore the least reason for doubting that it possessed a pedicle of the same kind with the larger specimen; but being proportionably less, it must have been so much more liable to be removed. The celebrated Linnaeus has considered the absence of a pedicle in this madrepore as one of its first specific characters. It is considered and described, both by Buttner and by Bromell, as the head or top of some small marine fungus: neither of them having discovered any remains of a pedicle by which it could have been attached to