276 Bibliographical Notices. 



EIBLIOGllAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Fossil Ceinoibs. 



Paleontoloqie Fran^aise ou description des fossiles de la France. — 

 Terrain jurassique, tome xi. premiere partie : Crino'ides, par M. 

 P. DE LoRiOL. Paris : 1882-1884. Pp. 627, pis. 1-121. 



Revision of the Palceocrinoidea. — Part III. Discussion of the Classi- 

 fication and Relations of the Brachiate Crinoids, and Conclusion 

 of the Generic Descriptions. By Charles AVachsmuth and Frank 

 Springer. First Section. Extracted from the ' Proceedings of 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences,' July 28, 1885. Philadelphia, 

 1885. Pp. 138, pis. iv.-ix. 

 When reviewing Mons. de Loriol's monograph upon the fossil 

 Crinoids of Switzerland in 'Nature' for August 4, 1881, we men- 

 tioned that he was engaged upon a similar work which would deal with 

 the Neoerinoids found fossil in France. The resnlts of his study of 

 some of those which occur iu the Jurassic rocks have now been 

 published as the first part of the eleventh volume of the ' Paleonto- 

 logie Frangaise.' We think that the indefatigable author has every 

 reason to be satisfied with his work, which cannot fail to be of the 

 utmost use to all students of the Neocrinoidea, and indeed to every 

 palaeontologist who wishes to have the means of naming the nume- 

 rous fragments of Apiocrinidjie which are so common in Jurassic 

 strata. 



The work before us, which consists of 027 pages of text with an 

 atlas of 121 plates, is, however, much more than a mere enumera- 

 tion of species, with descriptions of those previously unknown to 

 science. The first thirty pages are devoted to a good general intro- 

 duction, which touches upon the peculiarities of the Palaeozoic 

 Crinoids as well as of those of later date, with which the author is 

 more immediately concerned ; and it is illustrated by seven plates, 

 which contain figures of the Pentacrinoid larva and of the more 

 remarkable among the recent Crinoids which were known to the 

 author at the time when he commenced his work. The student is 

 thus brought face to face with the only method which can lead him 

 to a right understanding of his collections ; and it would be well if 

 Mons. de Loriol's example were more frequently followed by those 

 so-called palaeontologists who think that life is too short for the 

 study of the living representatives of their fossils. Every specialist 

 could name one or more of these empirical writers, who are often 

 most valuable as careful and zealous collectors, but come to utter 

 grief when they attempt to deal with questions of structure. Of 

 them may it truly be said " the evil that men do lives after them." 

 For the old error, though corrected again and again, is continually 

 being reproduced in text-books and elsewhei'e. The snake is never 

 really killed, but only scotched, and the advance of real scientific 

 knowledge is hindered in consequence. 



Mons. de Loriol's introduction is followed by a chapter on classi- 

 fication, in which Zittel's arrangement of the true or brachiate 

 Crinoids, the Cystids, and the Blastoids as orders of the class Cri- 

 noidea is adopted. But Pahieocrinoidea and Neocrinoidea are wisely 



