UINTACRINUS: 



ITS STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS. 



The occasion for this paper is the discovery of some remarkable speci- 

 mens of Uintacrinus, which have disclosed a number of entirely new 

 facts, not hitherto suspected, bearing upon its structure and relations. 

 When Mr. F. A. Bather, of the British Museum, brought out his admirable 

 morphological study of this remarkable Cretaceous Crinoid,* it seemed as 

 if he had left but little else for others to say on the subject. This would 

 probably have remained true, but for the accession of fresh material and the 

 discovery of new facts. Mr. Bather has since then prosecuted further 

 researches in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe, with very 

 interesting results bearing upon the occurrence and distribution of the 

 genus in that part of the world. t 



He has found that instead of being the rare form in the European 

 Cretaceous which it was supposed to be, evidenced only by the unique 

 specimen described by Professor Schlueter in 1878, Uintacrinus is one of the 

 most abundant fossils at the typical locality in Westphalia, although occur- 

 ring, so far as yet known, almost exclusively in the form of detached calyx 

 plates and brachials. He was, however, so fortunate as to find at Reck- 

 linghausen a second well-preserved calyx of U. zvest/alicns, about as good 

 as the type specimen. In England he finds the detached plates very 

 abundant in the Marsiipites beds of the White Chalk, closely associated 

 with Boiirgueticrimis ; and in some localities west of Margate Dr. Rowe has 

 found them associated with Marsiipites. 



In the meantime the present writer has been seeking for additional 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1895, pp. 974-1004- 

 t Gcol. Mag. N. S., Decade IV., Vol. III., pp. 443-445, 1896. 



1 



