L I L 



[258] 



L I M 



twenty-six thousand six hundred 

 pieces. The body is supported by 

 a long vertebral column attached 

 to the ground by an enlargement of 

 its base. It is composed of many 

 cylindrical thick joints, articulating 

 firmly with each other, and having 

 a central aperture, like the spinal 

 canal in the vertebrae of aquadruped, 

 through which a small alimentary 

 cavity descends from the stomach 

 to the base of the column. Prom 

 one extremity of the vetebral column 

 to the other, and throughout the 

 hands and fingers, the surface of 

 each bone articulates with that 

 adjacent to it, with the most per- 

 fect regularity and nicety of ad- 

 justment. So exact and metho- 

 dical is this arrangement, even to 

 the extremity of its minutest ten- 

 tacula, that it is just as improbable, 

 that the metals which compose the 

 wheels of a chronometer should for 

 themselves have calculated and 

 arranged the form and number of 

 the teeth of each respective wheel, 

 and that these wheels should have 

 placed themselves in the precise 

 position, fitted to attain the end 

 resulting from the combined action 

 of them all, as for the successive 

 hundreds and thousands of little 

 bones that compose an encrinite, 

 to have arranged themselves, in a 

 position subordinate to the end 

 produced by the combined effect 

 of their united mechanism; each 

 acting its peculiar part in harmo- 

 nious subordination to the rest, and 

 all conjointly producing a result 

 which no single series of them 

 acting separately, could possibly 

 have effected. The pelvis of the 

 lily encrinite resembles in shape a 

 depressed vase, and, by some, it is 

 supposed that its upper part was 

 closed by an integument, in the 

 centre of which was placed the 

 mouth. The encrinite differs from 

 the pentacrinite in having its plates, 

 or vertebra, rounded, whereas in 



the pentacrinites they are penta- 

 gonal. 



LI'MA. (lima, Lat. a file.) A genus 

 of bivalve shells placed by Lamark 

 in the family Pectinides. The limse 

 are nearly equivalve, inequilateral, 

 compressed, oblique, and auricu- 

 lated, the anterior auricle being 

 smaller than the other ; the hinge 

 consists of a triangular disk sepa- 

 rating the umbones, divided in the 

 centre by a triangular ligamentary 

 pit without teeth; the anterior 

 border has an hiatus more or less 

 wide, a feature which, together 

 with the triangular disk and ob- 

 lique form, distinguishes them from 

 the pectens. The Limse are found 

 in the shallows among corals and at 

 small depths, they swim freely and 

 rapidly, or rather flutter through 

 the water, working the valves of 

 their shell like fins or paddles. 

 M. Deshayes in his tables records 

 13 species fossil in the tertiary for- 

 mations, other species occur in the 

 cretaceous and oolitic systems of 

 rocks; in the latter more especially, 

 the number of species exceeds that 

 recorded from the tertiary series. 

 Some species spin a byssus, others 

 are free. Lycett. 



LIMAX. (Umax, Lat. a snail.) The 

 cochlea terrestris, or snail, so called 

 from its sliminess. 



LIMAX. The Latin name for those 

 air-breathing naked gasteropodous 

 mollusks, vernacularly known by 

 the name of slugs. Linneeus em- 

 ployed the term Umax as a generic 

 appellation for the naked slugs, 

 and thus defines them ; body ob- 

 long, repent, with a fleshy shield 

 above and a longitudinal flat disk 

 below. A dextral lateral foramen 

 for the genitals and excrements. 

 Pour tentacles above the mouth. 



LIMB, (from limbus, Lat.) 



1. An edge or border, as the sun's 

 limb, the moon's limb, &c. 



2. An extremity of the body, as 

 the arm or leg. 



