Fig. 123.
Caryophyllia cæspitosa, Lam. (Cladocora cæspitosa, Ehr.)
- a. Stem with young stem growing from its side.
- a*. Young stem of same twice magnified.
- b. Portion of branch, twice magnified, with the base of a lateral branch; the exterior ridges of the main branch appearing through the lamellæ of the lateral one.
- c. Transverse section of same, proving, by the integrity of the main branch, that the lateral one did not originate in a subdivision of the animal.
- d. A branch, having at its base another laterally united to it, and two young corals at its upper part.
- e. A main branch, with a full grown lateral one.
- f. A perfect terminal star.
The corals are usually branched, but not by the division of the animals as some have supposed, but by the attachment of young individuals to the sides of the older ones; and we must understand this mode of increase, in order to appreciate the time which was required for the building up of the whole bed of coral during the growth of many successive generations.[152-A]
Among the other fossil shells met with in these Sicilian strata, which still continue to abound in the Mediterranean, no shell is more conspicuous, from its size and frequent occurrence, than the great scallop, Pecten jacobæus (see [fig. 124.]), now so common in the neighbouring seas. We see this shell in the calcareous beds at Palermo in great numbers, in the limestone at Girgenti, and in that which alternates with volcanic rocks in the country between Syracuse and Vizzini, often at great heights above the sea.
Fig. 124.
Pecten jacobæus; half natural size.