Shell long, slender, excepting the inflated apex acutely conical, sides rectilinear, with about twenty-three whorls ; color, nucleus translucent, first three or four whorls with a deep reddish brown tinge which gradually fades to waxen white, tinged irregularly with faint brown or yellowish suffusion, in dead shells pure white, polished and partly translucent; nucleus inflated, vitriniform, set on a little obliquely, projecting outward more than the two subsequent apical whorls, smooth, but latterly faintly sculptured in transition toward the regular sculpture of the shell by faint posteriorly concave transverse undulations ; sub-sequent spiral sculpture of three and afterward four spiral flattened squarish ridges, the most prominent of which is the posterior, which is in front of and covers the invisible suture ; before this are two equal and slightly but distinctly smaller ones, and lastly at the anterior margin of the shell (except in the very young specimens) a still smaller rather rounded thread, which forms the periphery of the base, and which a slight expansion of the last half-whorl in the adult covers up, so that there are only three spirals visible on this last small portion ; base nearly flat, with one rather marked spiral within the periphery, defined by a groove on either side, and between this and the canal numerous fine submicroscopic spiral striae; in the earlier whorls the spirals are waved or even tuberculated by the transverse undulations, the large spiral most so and the anterior one least so, varying in amount in different specimens ; in a strongly sculptured specimen which was selected for description as living and perfect, the transverse sculpture (of about twenty faint undulations) is stronger than the spirals during the three or four apical whorls, gradually becoming fainter until on the eighteenth and succeeding whorls it is only visible between the spirals under a strong magnification ; for the greater part of the shell the spirals are not tubercled, but waved or slightly swollen at the intersection of the transversals, which last become fainter and more numerous from whorl to whorl, and on the base are not indicated, or only by moderately dis-tinct lines of growth. On another larger specimen the tuberculations or undulations are perceptible only on the earlier third of the shell, and on the remainder are represented only by the lines of growth ; in this specimen the spirals also are less distinctly marked in the latter part of the shell, the two intermediate ones suffering most diminution ; on the surface spiral striae exist, which are hardly to be detected on the first-mentioned strongly sculptured specimen ; the base is about the same in both. The sharp outer lip does not appear to be ever thickened, but at certain periods it is slightly reflected and this excessively thin edge is visible like a varix here and there on the whorls, although it hardly rises above their surface ; the aperture is squarish, short, and wide ; the inner lip glazed, but not thickened; the outer lip concavely waved laterally and with the basal edge slightly produced ; the pillar solid, very short, strongly spirally twisted and forming a short but very distinct canal abruptly bent to the left ; operculum so far retracted as to be inac¬cessible ; soft parts indicated by a blackish tinge perceptible through the shell. Lon. of shell, 10.5 ; of last whorl, 2.0 ; of aperture and canal, 1.5. Lat. of shell, 1.75; of aperture, 0.9. Lon. of longest specimen when perfect, 13.25 mm.