Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. Palaeontologia Indica being Figures and Descriptions of the Organic Remains Procured During the Progress of the Geological Survey of India. Creataceous Fauna of Southern India. The Echinodermata

Indeed, even setting aside the interest which the study of corals possesses for the morphologist and the systematic zoologist, few other even of the higher classes of the animal kingdom can compete with the importance, which the corals possess, and for ages past have maintained, in the economy of nature, The distribution of the corals in the different depths of the sea has been for years past stud [...] IIe knows where he has to seek for the ancient land ; he looks after certain animal forms in the lagoons ; after others in and on the coral limestone ; and the thickness and character of the cropping out of the limestone indicate to him the relation of the beds beyond the reef. [...] Although none of the Indian specimens appear to attain the large she of the type figured by Fromentel, and although the pedicellate base is in none of them very much curved and prolonged, the form of most of the coralla, the equally thick and granular costae, and the distribution of the septa, leave scarcely a doubt regarding the identity of the Indian with the European fossil. [...] Lophosmilia is closely allied to Placosmilia, but while in the former the corallum is usually of small size with the costae most distinct near the calyx, with the septa 'generally somewhat attenuated at the inner ends, and with a very small number of dissepiments, the same is in the latter generally of moderate size with the costae well developed in the entire length, with the septa internally usu [...] The strength of the septa, between which the dissepiments and the endotheca are very much developed, and the roundness of the stem, readily separate the pre- sent species from the two others known from cretaceous deposits.