234 Notices respecting New Books. 



stellatus. In Westmoreland, Cumberland, the bishopric of' 

 Durham^ and several other parts of Great Britain, as well as 

 of the C6ntinent, are considerable accumulations of parti- 

 cular species of the aa:gr'egated and compound madrepores. 



*' The softer zoophytes, such as the sponges, alcyonia, 

 &:c., evince still stronger marks of their not having been 

 conveyed by torrents to their present residences. Many of 

 these are of such a structure as certainly could not have 

 borne such a conveyance, with so little injury as is discover- 

 able in the several specimens, which have been examined in 

 the precedino pages. But the congregation of so many of 

 these bodies in particular districts, as has been already no- 

 ticed, particularly in France, in Switzerland, and in this 

 bland, still more strongly proves these to have been the 

 identical parts where they lived. 



" But should any doubt remain of the fossil zoophytes 

 having inhabited the sea, in the identical places where they 

 arc now found, penetrated with and entombed in stone, 

 those doubts must yield to the still more convincing circum- 

 stances, which attend the fossil remains of encrini and pen- 

 tacrini. The marine origin o^ these animals, we have seen, 

 has been deterniincd by the discovery of the recent. remains 

 of two or three pcntacrlni in the Atlantic Ocean: and that 

 the fossil jpeeies must have had their existence where they 

 arc now found, is plainly evinced, not only by the vast ac- 

 cumulations of distinct species in particular districts ; but 

 by several instances occurring, particularly with the lily cn- 

 crinite, u here, notwithstanding the extreme delicacy of their 

 construction, even the more minute, and more easily sepa- 

 rable parts, have been repeatedly found, in their mineralized 

 state, preserved in almost their natural connexion. 



" In concluding the present volume, it seems necessary 

 to remark, that the circumstances ob&.erved whilst examine 

 in IT the several fossils hitherto noticed, have 3ppe^lred to be 

 feufficient to warrant the following conclusions : 



" 1st. That the water has rested for a considerable period 

 over the general surface of the enrth. 



,'<£d. That the mineralized zoophytes found imbedded 

 in different parts of the earth, and cvQn in mountains of 



considerable 



