CLEIOCEINUS. 105 



the disturbance came from below, the base being thrust upward into the 

 calyx, expanding it until the radials were separated, the basals forced in 

 between them, and the infrabasals into a ring formed of the two. 



It will be remembered also that the radials are angular below, although 

 with nothing whatever in their present position to meet their angles, or for 

 them to rest upon. The basals, on the other hand, are angular above, so 

 that the inferior angular faces of the radials would fit between the sloping 

 upper faces of the basals if they were brought together. If, therefore, with 

 this idea in view, we could stretch the Crinoid up from the column, so as to 

 make room for these two circlets of plates within the calyx wall, we should 

 find that they would fall into their relative positions without any difficulty. 

 This imaginary process may be indicated by the accompanying diagrams, 

 in which the plates in question are represented by dotted lines, — Fig. 1 

 as they are now, and Fig. 2 as they would appear if placed in their proper 

 position. 



IE 



XJB^ 



V 1Br ' ) 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



This seems to me a reasonable explanation of the relation of these struc- 

 tures so anomalous, — although I do not find myself able to account for it 

 upon any teleological or evolutionary basis. I must look for enlightenment 

 on this phase of the subject to some of my transatlantic friends, who have 

 been admitted much farther into the mysteries of Phylogenesis than I. The 

 structure looks like one of those experiments which we sometimes encounter 

 in Nature, and recalls the observation of Diderot in his " Pensees de lTnter- 

 pretation de la Nature," where he says : " It seems that Nature has taken 

 pleasure in varying the same mechanism in a thousand different ways. She 

 never abandons any class of her creations before she has multiplied the indi- 

 viduals of it in as many different forms as possible." At all events the ex- 

 periment was a short-lived one, for it is never heard of again. It must be 



