CRINODEANS.
Among the fossil families of the Radiated division of animals, the Geologist discovers one whose living analogues are seldom seen, and whose vast numerical extent and extraordinary beauty entitle it to peculiar consideration.
Successions of strata, each many feet in thickness, and many miles in extent, are often half made up of the calcareous skeletons of Encrinites. The Entrochal Marble of Derbyshire, and the Black rock in the cliffs of Carboniferous limestone near Bristol, are well known examples of strata thus composed; and show how largely the bodies of Animals have occasionally contributed by their remains, to swell the Volume of materials that now compose the mineral world.
The fossil remains of this order have been long known by the name of Stone Lilies, or Encrinites, and have lately beenn classed under a separate order by the name of Crinoïdea;
This order comprehends many Genera and numerous Species, and is ranged by Cuvier after the Asteriæ, in the division Zoophytes. Nearly all these species appear to have been attached to the bottom of the Sea, or to floating extraneous bodies.[1]
- ↑ These animals form the subject of an elaborate and excellent work, by Mr. Miller, entitled a Natural History of the Crinoidea, or Lily-shaped Animals. The representations at Pl. 48, and Pl. 49, Fig. 1. of one of the most characteristic species of this family, being that to which the name of stone-lily was first applied; and the figures of two other species at Pl. 47, Fig. 1, 2, 5, will exemplify the following definition given of them by Mr. Mi1ler, "An animal with a round, oval, or angular column, composed of numerous articulating joints, supporting at its summit, a series of plates, or joints, which form a cup-like body, containing the viscera, from whose upper rim proceed five articulated arms, dividing into tentaculated fingers, more or less numerous, surrounding the aperture of the mouth, (Pl. 47. Figs. 6, x. 7, x) situated in the centre of a plated integument, which extends over the abdominal cavity, and is capable of being contracted into a conical of proboscal shape."
