240 THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY 



mediaeval world of Plot, and have left but scant space for 

 the laborious Llwyd, who succeeded him as keeper of the 

 Ashmolean Museum, or " Cimeliarcha," as it seems to 

 have been called at that time. Out of the 1766 specimens, 

 which formed the geological collection under Llwyd's 

 care, two are still to be seen in the University Museum ; 

 one is an Orthoceras, the other a sea-lily ; the latter is 

 of particular interest ; it was described and figured by 

 Llwyd in his "Iconographia,"* and afterwards in a letter 

 to Dr. Lister.f It was again described and figured by 

 Miller as a type of his species, Actinocrinuspolydactylus.l 

 To have survived after other vicissitudes two centuries of 

 human custody, and to have been chosen to represent its 

 species after its claims to a place in the organic world 

 had been hotly contested, is in itself something, but the 

 chief claim this fossil makes upon our attention is a 

 reference to it by Llwyd in a letter to Dr. Lister, 

 when he says : " . . . the rest are Modioli or Vertebra 

 of Sea-stars : for I have long since been fully satisfied 

 that all sorts of EntrocJii and Asteria must be referred 

 thither; not that I conclude either these or any other 

 Marine terrestrial Bodies were ever really either Parts or 

 Exuvice of Animals, but that they bear the same relation 

 to the Sea-stars that Glossopetrce, do to the teeth of Sharks : 

 the Fossil Shells to the Marine ones, &c." 



We might be tempted to regard the concluding words 

 of this quotation as a clever evasion, worthy to be ranked 

 with the apology of Copernicus, but this would be to do a 

 serious injury to Llwyd ; he was perfectly honest, as we 

 shall find if we turn to his monumental work entitled 

 " Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia." This contains 



* P. 104, pi. xxii. fig. 4. 



t Phil. Trans., 1698, vol. xx. p. 279, fig. 14. 



| " Nat. Hist. Crinoidea," pi. i. fig. 2. 



Loc. cit., p. 279. 



