Figs. 1, 2, 3. (Cyathophyllum turbinatum, of Goldfuss.) These three turbinated or top-shaped corals are referable to a genus of which many species are exceedingly abundant in the Wenlock or Dudley limestone of the Silurian System. They belong to the Anthozoa, or flower-like corals. The living animal, of which the coral is but the durable earthy fabric or skeleton, bore a close analogy to the sea-anemone, or animal flower (Actinia), of our coasts. Each of these specimens belonged but to a single animal: the Cyathophylla are not, like the tubipores previously described, an aggregation of numerous individual polypes.[27]
[27] For a popular account of the nature of Corals and the animals which form them, see Wonders of Geology, vol. ii. Lect. vi. p. 589.
Fig. 4. A small coral (Fungia) from Dudley.
Fig. 5. On this block of mountain limestone there are the remains of two different kinds of corals. The upper cylindrical part is a fragment of Cyathophyllum, to the lower part of which is attached a species of another genus (Michelinia).
Fig. 6, is a small coral (Fungia numismalis, of Goldfuss), common in the Oolite.
Fig. 7. A piece of encrinital limestone, from Derbyshire, having a conical cast—that is, the stone has been moulded in the interior or cavity—of a turbinated coral (Turbinolia).
Fig. 8. A longitudinal section, showing the transverse cells and lamellæ of the same kind of coral (Cyathophyllum) as figs. 1, 2, 3.
Fig. 9. A species of Turbinolia (Turbinolia complanata, of Goldfuss).
Fig. 10. A small turbinated coral (Turbinolia mitrata, of Hesinger), from the Silurian strata of Gothland.
Fig. 11. a Turbinolia from the Silurian deposits of Sweden.