8 HISTORY OF THE CRINOIDE^. 



the ingenious German miner who taught that petrifactions were not 

 the remains of things which once had an actual existence as living 

 creatures, but simply the shapes of animals generated in the solid 

 rock by some material principle rendered active by the subterranean 

 heat. Entertaining such views, he could not be expected to contri- 

 bute any important assistance in determining the true characters of 

 fossils which bore no resemblance to any animal then known. 

 From several passages which occur in the writings of this author 

 it seems that, previously to his time, naturalists had given to the 

 different parts of the skeletons of the Orinoids, such as the joints 

 of the stalk or the flower-shaped body, the names of " Trochites^'' 

 ^'' Entrochus,''^ and ^^ Encrinus,^^ the latter giving origin to the term 

 "Encrinite," afterwards used as a general designation for the whole 

 order. Agricola bestowed the name of Pentacrinus upon the bodies 

 of that species now so well known as Ejicrinus moniliformis, applying 

 it not to the whole of the cup, but to specimens which had lost the 

 arms. The separated joints of the pentagonal column, which are 

 somewhat like a five-rayed star, he called Aslroites or Asteria. It is 

 scarcely necessary to add that he did not believe them to be animal 

 remains. 



Soon after the time of Agricola the nature of crinoidal remains 

 became a subject of much discussion, and exercised greatly the 

 speculative faculties of a host of writers who were more or less 

 interested in settling the grand problem, — whether or not fossils 

 were of animal origin. For nearly two centuries many of those 

 who placed any confidence whatever in the affirmative of the 

 question still regarded the Crinoids as fossil plants, and contended 

 that the body with its branching arms was the root ; others thought 

 that the jointed stalks were the petrified vertebral columns of fishes; 

 while some compared them to the dphuncles of Orthoceratites. 

 It was not until 1719 that one Rosinus published the opinion that 

 the Crmoids were the remains of animals closely allied to the Star- 

 fishes, and endeavored to shew that they were provided with a stalk, 

 notwithstanding their animal nature. When it is taken into consi- 

 deration that at that time no living creature with a structure at all 

 resembling the organism suggested by Rosinus was known, it is 

 clear that such a view must have appeared quite extraordinary to 

 most of the naturalists of the age. A correct theory however often 

 precedes its confirmation, and forty-two years afterwards, or in 1761, 

 a living eacrinite, the Pentacrinus caimt-Mcdusce, was drawn up from 

 the bottom of the sea with all its parts constructed exactly in 



