222 Chatburn. 



anemone," the colour of which was no doubt brilliant, 

 and probably diversified, as happens with the sea- 

 anemones of our rocky shores to-day. What is most 

 curious is that at Clitheroe there are thousands upon 

 thousands of the petrified heads of some of these crea- 

 tures, (as of the one called Platycrinus tria- 

 contadac'tylos, or the " thirty-rayed,") but no 

 bodies ; while at Castleton, on the other hand, 

 where the encrinital limestone is also well 

 developed, there are innumerable specimens 

 of the petrified bodies, but no heads. The 

 explanation of this singular fact is, that at 

 the time when these animals existed, great 

 floods swept the shores upon which they 

 FIG. 39. were seated, breaking off and washing away 



Encrinite, 



or Stone-niy. the tender and flower-like heads, but leaving 

 the pillar-like bodies still fast to the ground, just as 

 at the present day we see the petals of the pear-tree 

 blossom wrenched away by the storm, and heaped up 

 like a snowdrift by the wayside. Not that bodies are 

 wanting at Clitheroe ; for at Salt-hill, " the limestone 

 is quite friable in many cases, from the number of 

 broken encrinital stems which compose it." Another 

 fossil encrinite very abundant about Clitheroe is that 

 one called the Actinocrinus. 



To see specimens of these encrinital remains, it is 

 simply necessary to notice the great stones set up end- 

 ways, in place of stiles, between the fields, after passing 



