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demand attention, from the great probability of their having formed 

 the inferior termination of the trunk of the lily encrinus. His at- 

 tention was first drawn to these bodies by the accounts which he re- 

 ceived from a quarry-man at Asseburg, who had been employed by 

 him in the search for fossils in those quarries. From him he learnt, 

 that there had frequently been found, in those quarries, irregularly 

 formed roundish bodies, of the size of a fist, from which the stems 

 of entrochites stuck out like so many fingers ; but which, not being 

 heeded by the quarry-men, were consequently lost. Rosinus did not, 

 however, rest, until he had obtained a sufficient number of speci- 

 mens to enable him to form a tolerable judgment as to the nature of 

 these bodies. 



The only specimen which I have been able to obtain of this fossil 

 is that which is represented Plate XIV. Fig. 4. This specimen is formed 

 by two series of trochitae, or by two entrochi, the one twined round 

 the other, and both closely united by a spathose matter. Various si- 

 milar masses are figured by Rosinus, Tab. X. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7 8, who 

 considers them as the roots or beginnings (exordia) of the trochitae, 

 belonging to some unknown crustaceous selenitic body, or rather to 

 some hitherto unknown species of sea-star, which he supposes to be 

 characterized by this spathose suffusion *. Harenberg, who, although 

 apprized of the discoveries of Rosinus, believed the encrinus to be a 

 marine plant, necessarily concluded that this plant was attached by a 

 root, which he supposed to be formed of trochitae of the smallest or- 

 der, and gives a representation of three masses, similar to those de- 

 scribed by Rosinus, marking them as roots consisting of trochita3 -f. 



Others had regarded these masses rather as concretions of coralline 

 bodies ; but it is justly observed by Mr. Walch, that the crenulated 

 articulations of these bodies, which are peculiar to the encrinites, 

 and which are never to be observed in corals, plainly point out to 

 which class these bodies belong. 



* Tentam. de Lithozois, p. 8 1 . -j- Encrinus seu Lilium Lapkteum, p. 7. 



