
CARBONIFEROUS CRINOID ‘‘ FINGERS” OR “BRANCHES.” 59 
All the limestone is very full of fossils, some bands of it being 
made up of scalps of Streptorhynchus crenistria, Phill., Crinoid 
remains, or Producti, mostly Productus semireticulatus, Martin. 
The shale on the Crinoid shale bank evidently came from the 
upper eight feet of the section, and, although Crinoid remains 
much prevail, it also contains small Corals, Producti, Spirifera 
Urii, Flem., Choneies polita, M‘Coy, frequently; and rarely, 
small Conularias, &c. 
I asked Mr. James Bennie, of the Geological Survey, who has 
perhaps examined as much shale as any one, if he had ever found 
any of these grasping “ Crinoid fingers” or “‘ branches.” He re- 
plied that he had not, but had often got the “ grasping feet” of 
Crinoids. Of course, any person who has been in the habit of 
examining fossiliferous shale—either Silurian or Carboniferous— 
must be well acquainted with these “ grasping feet,” as Mr. 
_ Bennie calls them. In our Scotch Carboniferous shales they are 
always found in connection with very small, or perhaps young 
Crinoids, and are the processes by which the base of the column 
was fixed to foreign bodies, generally fragments of shells, Crinoid 
“stems,” or Corals; the large Scotch Carboniferous specimens 
never showing rooting processes. This leads me to think—and I 
have long held the opinion—that our large Carboniferous Crinoid 
“stems,” or ‘‘columns,” were not attached by root-like processes, 
or by a calcareous plaster, resembling that which fixes Corallina 
officinalis, Linn., a calcareous seaweed, to stones; but were free- 
swimmers, like jelly-fish, the “ stem” hanging down in the water, 
and so preserving them in a vertical position. The base may have 
been fleshy, and they may, of course, have been fixed after the 
manner of an Anemone, and if so, we are not likely to find this 
out. 
The great weight of the column is rather against the floating 
theory, but still it is the most plausible I can think of. It is not 
likely that the stems lay along the sea bottom, as in that case we 
ought to find them oftener in considerable lengths ; but the fact 
is they are nearly always got in short bits, often indeed broken 
up into their ultimate joints; and had they lived prone on the 
sea bottom, the stems ought to be curved near the base of the 
calyx. The “branches” are often found to be cwrved close to the 
stems. From this consideration, the upright theory of growth is 
