﻿2 54 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



This imperfectly understood echinoderm has been variously re- 

 garded as the float or the inflated root end of a crinoid or the theca 

 of a cystid. These bodies have recently been found in considerable 

 numbers in such widely separated localities as Maryland, Tennessee, 

 and Indian Territory. The material from the last region is best 

 preserved and permits of the determination of every detail. 



The writer has been enabled to work out much that is new regard- 

 ing the minute structure of these objects as well as their occurrence in 

 the strata. Before proceeding to their description, however, it is 

 deemed advisable to give a rather full account of what others have 

 said about them, followed by a statement as to their occurrence in the 

 various geological formations. 



History of the Genus 



The first American to find Camarocrinus appears to have been John 

 Gebhard, Jr., of Schoharie, New York. Dr. John M. Clarke, in a 

 letter to the writer dated Albany, New York, January 7, 1904. 

 furnished the following interesting statement : " Do you remember 

 John Gebhard, Jr. — Squire John as his friends liked to call him — 

 or had he passed on before your day in Albany? He died in 1887 

 at a very advanced age. Your quandary over the nature of Camaro- 

 crinus reminds me of his ready interpretation of it. The Squire was 

 the most assiduous collector of fossils of his day in this country 

 and I have no doubt was the first to discover this strange fossil. He 

 had extensive collections and a detailed knowledge of the rocks in 

 Schoharie county before the New York Survey came into being. 

 When Lyell came to America [1841-42], Hall took him over to 

 Schoharie to see the region and the Gebhard collections. In them 

 were fine slabs of Tentaculites gyracanthus from the Tentaculite lime- 

 stone and Lyell said to Gebhard (the Squire himself told me this ) 

 ' Here you have the spines of sea urchins, see if you cannot find the 

 echinus itself.' This Gebhard set himself to do and accomplished 

 his purpose, finding Camarocrinus. To him these bodies were always 

 sea urchins whose spines were Tentaculites." 



Hall describes Camarocrinus as follows : 



" Body large, externally lobed, chambered within, varying from 

 transversely or longitudinally oblate-spheroidal to subspherical, and 

 frequently assuming an unsymmetrical form from the unequal de- 

 velopment of the lobes corresponding to the internal chambers. The 

 cavity of the body or dome is divided into two or more large com- 

 partments, with usually several smaller accessory chambers, by verti- 

 cal and horizontal partitions which are extensions of the substance 

 of the inner walls of the dome. 



