the Crinoidese and the Echinodermata. 281 



portant group of animals, the late Mr. J. S. Miller is entitled to 

 a prominent place ; and although the correctness of many of his 

 inductions may be fairly doubted, we must nevertheless be sen- 

 sible of his great assiduity, deep research, and persevering in- 

 dustry in raising the Crinoidese from a miscellaneous state of 

 confusion to a position of arrangement and order, which has 

 caused them to be better understood and appreciated. 



Subsequently, however, to Miller's investigation, so numerous 

 have been the discoveries, that out of three or four hundred 

 species of fossil Crinoids now known to science, he was only 

 acquainted with twenty-four. The number of genera since 

 established greatly outnumbers even the species discovered up to 

 the period at which he wrote. Not only have new discoveries 

 been made as regards numbers, but more perfect specimens have 

 been obtained, so as to enable the naturalist to draw inductions and 

 prove analogies between them and existing groups of animals, 

 and thus in a manner compel him to re-arrange the whole tribe, 

 to use a new nomenclature, and, in short, to raise it to a parallel 

 position with the class to which it belongs, and which the ad- 

 vanced state of knowledge imperatively demands. 



As we advance in our acquaintance with this very interesting 

 class of animals, we are soon struck with the manner in which 

 this remarkable tribe demonstrate the changes of organic life on 

 our earth and the mutations it has undergone, and also the 

 various physical changes that have taken place ; the distribution 

 of fossil zoological remains proving that these repeated changes 

 in animal life have been in perfect accordance with the altered 

 physical conditions of the planet. 



The discoveries I have been fortunate enough to make of many 

 new species, and nearly perfect in form, has thrown considerable 

 light on the subject. Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Gray, of Dudley, 

 have done good service to science in collecting many fine speci- 

 mens of Crinoidese, while the extensive addition of new forms 

 made by Dr. Troost, of Tennessee, and other American geologists, 

 reflects honour on their country. Dr. Troost has added between 

 one and two hundred new genera and species, all of which he 

 obtained from the American rocks. As far as my own observa- 

 tion yet extends, the species are without exception unknown to 

 the rocks of Europe. Sir Charles Lyell found that the American 

 marine shells agree with the European to the extent of 35 per 

 cent. This is the more remarkable, as of the American fossil 

 Crinoids which have come under my notice, consisting of upwards 

 of twenty species, together with six new Pentremites and the 

 allied Olivanites, and for which I am mostly indebted to the 

 liberality of Dr. Yandell, I cannot recognise a single individual 

 as being exactly identical with any European species. 



