98 



their superior termination they enlarge rather suddenly, 

 both in width and thickness, receding so far from each other 

 internally as to leave vacuities between them about their 

 centre, which is also pierced by a large foramen. On the 

 uppermost of these vertebrae is placed a flattish body di- 

 vided into five compartments, answering to the five sepa- 

 rated clavicles of the lily encrinite ; and on this, the ossicles 

 corresponding to the scapulae, arms, <ic. are disposed in such 

 order, as to form a pear-shaped body, containing in its 

 centre a ventricular cavity, and set round at its upper part 

 with twenty depressions, from which proceeded the fingers 

 of the animal. 



With respect to the geognostic situation of these re- 

 mains, we obtain the following information from Mr. Towns- 

 hend, who considers it as a fossil of the great oolite. 

 " Among the extraneous fossils, imbedded in the white clay, 

 (on the surface of the uppermost bed, but not in the body 

 of the rock,) the most interesting are the encrinites, first 

 noticed by the Rev. Benjamin Richardson, at Burfield, 

 Wiltshire, near the summit of the hill on the southern 

 hanging of which Bradford stands ; they were next dis- 

 covered south of the river, on the surface of the rock, in the 

 same bed of white clay, but more than one hundred feet 

 lower than Burfield, and a little elevated above the level of 

 the river : finally, they were traced on the high summit of 

 the opposite hill, yet always deposited in their proper bed*." 



Remains of this animal, agatised, have been found at 

 Soissons ; its remains are also found at PfefHngen, in Ger- 

 many, it appearing that the remains found there belonged 

 to much larger animals than those from which the Wiltshire 

 fossils proceeded. 



Sp 5. The nave encrinite. — This appellation was em- 

 ployed as a temporary designation of this fossil, derived 



* The Character of Moses Established, &c. p. 268. 



