162 GEOLOGY. 
the banks of the rivers that swept in mighty volume to the carbonifer- 
ous sea. We see the lepidodendron?! or scale-tree, with its pine-like 
leaves, beautiful scaly bark, and great cones, from which the seed of 
the ancient pine may be gathered in hundreds to this very day; the 
sigillaria? or seal-tree, with its seal-stamped trunk and great pitted 
and branched roots, long thought to be a tree of a different species ; 
calamite 3 or reed, rising high into the air, like the bamboo, with its 
joints and leafy branchlets; and many more, equally beautiful and well 
preserved. . 
The animal remains found are numerous and strange. Corals are 
abundant and beautiful ; but no sea-creature was more common than the 
encrinite, which rose on its long jointed stalk, bearing its cup-shaped body, 
with its hundred fingers, that moved on all sides to secure its prey, like 
the anemone of our own seas. 
The remains of encrinites 
are in some places so abund- 
ant as to form thick beds of 
limestone, called Encrinital 
Limestone ; and when these, 
hard as marble, are polished, 
they present a most beauti- 
ful surface, through which 
is seen the exquisite carving 
of the encrinite stars. The 
little joints of the stems are 
often found detached, with 
Fig. 88.—Fragment of Encrinital Limestone. ® hole through the centre ; 
these are known as Fairy 
. Beads and as St Cuthbert’s Beads; and when strung together, were used as 
a rosary, and no more beautiful ornament was ever hung round the neck 
of a saint. We also find star-fishes and sea-urchins ; and the spines of the 
latter may be seen running through the limestone like threads of burnished 
silver. The shells are very numerous and varied ; univalves and bivalves 
of both sea and land being everywhere found, and some of these can hardly 
be distinguished from shells gathered on our own shores, so perfect are 
they in form, colour, and structure. They may be detached from the rock, 
and collections made of them as easily as of modern shells. We find also 
crustaceans of different kinds; and the last trilobites are found in the 
Coal-measures, Fishes are numerous and formidable, but less so than 
in the Old Red Period. Reptiles in both salt and fresh water have also 

1 From Latin Jepis, a scale, and dendron, a tre. 3 From Latin calamus, a reed, 
2 From Latin sigilla, a seui. 
