290 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cuap. VIII, © 
the town, a bed of limestone was exposed, the upper surface 
of which was incrusted with the stony peduncles or roots of | 
Apiocrinites ; upon this stratum was a layer of clay, in which 
were innumerable remains of receptacles and ossicula of — 
stems and arms ; some of the stems were erect, others pros- — 
trate, and throughout the clay were the dismembered remains. — 
This submarine forest of Crinoideans must therefore have — 
flourished in the clear sea-water, till invaded by a current ~ 
loaded with mud that overwhelmed the living zoophytes, — 
and entombed them in the argillaceous deposit in which 
their fossil remains are imbedded.* } 
The constituent substance of the ossicula and plates of the — 
Bradford Encrinite is calcareous, and has an oblique frac- F 
ture ; the colour is generally a light ochre, or a bluish grey.f_ 
APriocriInus ELLIPTIcus. Lign. 93.—Detached ossicula of — 
this small encrinite are abundant in the White Chalk ; the 
receptacle is known to the quarrymen by the name of “bottle.” 
The pieces composing the column are cylindrical in the — 
upper part, and elliptical and angular in the lower, and are 
articulated by a transversely-grooved surface. The two upper — 
joints are enlarged, and support the receptacle, which is © 
smooth and round (jig. 1). The column has articulated side-— 
arms, and the base numerous jointed processes of attachment, - 
which, when found apart from the column, have been mis- 
* Burfield quarry, on the heights of Bradford, is the locality referred 
to; but I believe it is rarely that any specimens of the Apiocrinite are 
to be found in an erect position. I could not learn from any-of the 
local collectors, that an example had been seen by them. When I 
visited the quarry in June, 1848, no good section of the beds was. 
apparent : a few detached plates of Apiocrinites were the only relies 
we could meet with. Mr. Reginald Mantell, when engaged on the 
construction of the railway near Bradford, sought repeatedly, but in 
vain, to discover any Apiocrinites in an erect position, or as if lying — 
on the spot where they grew. 
+ Pict. Atlas. pl. 1. contains figures of the Bradford Encrinites. 
