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tracted into a body of a similar form. The fossil referred to is de- 

 scribed " as the ramified arms of the head of an encrinus, closed up 

 together. From the cabinet of Mr. Francombe ; found at Pyrton 

 Passage, Gloucestershire." 



In the several species of encrinites, whose superior parts have been 

 sufficiently perfect to allow of their examination, it has appeared that 

 the ramifications or fingers were given off in so regular and uniform a 

 manner, as to render them capable of being closed exactly together ; 

 the projecting parts all fitting into corresponding depressions on the 

 opposite parts. In the pentacrinites, on the contrary, the branches 

 not appearing to be given off with such regularity, and being at the 

 same time extended to a considerable length, and amply supplied 

 with lateral processes or tentacula, which are also very long, there 

 does not appear to be reason for supposing that they were capable of 

 being contracted into a compact assemblage, bearing a regular form, 

 similar to those of the different species of encrinites. 



But in this fossil, which is evidently a pentacrinite, since a penta- 

 gonal asteria is depicted as still adherent to its base, ten arms pro- 

 ceed from its pentagonal base, much in the same manner as in the 

 lily and cap encrinite. These arms also bifurcate somewhat in the 

 same manner as is observable in the arms of those fossils ; trie divi- 

 sions, however, more closely resembling the divisions which take 

 place in the arms of the cap encrinite ; a first division taking place 

 at about the third articulation, and the fingers which are thus formed 

 being repeatedly subdivided in a dichotomous manner. The whole 

 of the arms and fingers, although .so repeatedly separated, as is 

 shewn in the figure, evidently possessed the power of so contracting 

 themselves, as thereby to acquire a regular and determined form. 

 We are, I think, fully warranted in considering this fossil as the supe- 

 rior termination of the Gloucestershire pentacrinite. 



