405 



From all these considerations, I am induced to conclude that 

 these bodies do not assume their form from any natural pores of 

 the wood that they are not coralline bodies that they are not 

 stalks of pentacrinites and that the surrounding ring has not, in 

 every case, been derived from the same origin as the contained 

 column. Thus much, I trust, may be asserted, with respect to what 

 these bodies are not ; but as to any opinions, as to what they really 

 may have been, these have been formed under such doubts, as to 

 require that I should offer them with hesitation. There appears 

 to be every reason to conclude, with Mr. Walch and others, that 

 this columnar body was originally a zoophyte, totally different 

 from any which are now known to exist ; and in very few respects, 

 indeed, analogous with any of those which we see in a fossil state. 

 It also appears, that one of the habitudes of this insect was that of 

 forming a tube, for its domicile, in any appropriate substance ; and 

 that decayed wood was most frequently, if not always, selected by 

 it for this purpose. 



No section or specimen, which I have yet seen, allows us to deter- 

 mine whether the complete animal was in one continuous straight 

 columnar body, or whether it separated into ramifications: nor can 

 it be ascertained, by any specimens I have examined, what is the 

 natural termination of the ends of this substance ; no change of its 

 columnar form hav-ing been yet seen, which would authorize the 

 suspicion of its divaricating, and forming a head in the manner of 

 the encrinus. 



Plate VII. Fig. 1. represents a specimen which gives a very fa- 

 vourable view of the general appearance which this stone yields : 

 it is not, however, so rich in colour, as some specimens are. On 

 the lower edge very plain traces of its ligneous origin may be per- 

 ceived, and towards the other edge may be seen several of the stel- 

 lated bodies in the tubules, to which some are attached at one side, 

 whilst others are exactly in the centre ; the other part of the tubule 



