241 



BETTER XXIII. 



PENTACRINITES.... DIFFERENT VERTEBRAE NOTICED. 



AGREEABLE to the distinction which it has been already determined 

 to adopt, I have first examined all the species of this kind of fossil, 

 which from their trochital vertebrae, required to be placed among the 

 encrinites; I shall now proceed to examine such, as from their penta- 

 gonal vertebra, may be considered as pentacrinites. These, as far as 

 our limited knowledge of them will allow me to judge, may be de- 

 scribed as the mineralized osseous parts of a zoophyte, which posesssed 

 a pentagonal, articulated, vertebral column, from the superior part of 

 which, from Jive bases, proceeded as many articulated arms, speedily rami- 

 fying into innumerable smaller branches, closely beset with articulated ten- 

 tacula, bearing, in the mass, much of a plumose appearance. 



Adopting, as nearly as I am able, the same order in the investiga- 

 tion of these bodies, as was employed whilst examining the several spe- 

 cies of encrinites, I shall, in the first place, make inquiry respecting 

 the nature and history of the fossil vertebrae of these animals. Small 

 fiat stones have long been found, being angular and almost con- 

 stantly pentagonal ; bearing on their flat surfaces a stellated figure, 

 somewhat resembling the five expanded petals of a flower. To these 

 stones was given the name of ASTERIJE, or Star-stones ; and when. 



VOL. II, II 



