404 



the stars exist without any surrounding containing ring; in another, 

 as in Plate VIII. Fig. 1, they are surrounded by circular, or some- 

 what oval lines, which have the appearance of the section of the 

 longitudinal vessels of the plant, but uncommonly large; and in 

 another, they are surrounded by a ring, as at Fig. 3, which there 

 seems no difficulty in considering, as the tube formed by the teredo 

 navalis, or some such insect. This want of uniformity, takes away 

 much from the probability of their form depending on the natural 

 pores of a plant. 



The opinion of their having been coralline bodies, is opposed by 

 the material difference observable in their internal structure. In 

 corals, indeed, there is somewhat of a stellated appearance, formed 

 by very fine lamellae passing from the centre to the circumference, 

 the intervening parts bearing rather the appearance of the petals of 

 a flower with the points towards the centre ; the reverse of which is 

 the appearance which is yielded by these stars, the rays or points 

 all tending outwards. Two very forcible objections exist against 

 their being, as some have supposed, the stalks of pentacrinites, or 

 the plumose encrinus ; in the first place, the stalks of the plumose 

 encrinus are so generally pentagonal, that, perhaps, not one devia- 

 tion will be found in ten thousand of their joints; whereas the rays 

 of these stellae are so inconstant in their number, that on one spe- 

 cimen of this fossil, of the size of the palm of the hand, may be 

 seen several of five, and of eight, and of every intermediate num- 

 ber of rays. In the second place, these stellated bodies are per- 

 fectly continuous in their length, whereas the stalk of the encrinus 

 is divided into joints, at less than each quarter of an inch. In op- 

 position to the opinion of the surrounding ring, as well as the star, 

 being the work of a zoophyte, must be placed the undoubted fact 

 of the stellated column, being sometimes found in a tube, evidently 

 the work of the teredo, or some similar insect. 



