ORGANIC REMAINS 



LETTER I. 



STAR-FISH RARELY MINERALISED FOSSIL SPECIES PARTI- 

 CULARISED. 



As we proceed upwards on the scale of creation, the star-fish, or 

 sea-star, Stella marina, Linckii, et Asteria, Linnai*, is the next animal 

 which demands our attention, as a subject of the mineral kingdom. 

 The fossil remains of these animals are by no means so frequent as are 

 those of many others ; a circumstance which is perhaps not to be satis- 

 factorily accounted for. The numerous species of these animals which 

 do now exist, and the comparatively few which are found in a mine- 



* The name, Stella marina, employed by Linck, on the authority of Pliny, is adopted, 

 in these pages, in preference to Asteria, which Linnaeus has used, after Hippocrates and 

 Aristotle. The only reason for this adoption is, that the confusion will thereby be pre- 

 vented, which would necessarily arise from the employment, in this place, of the word 

 astei'ia, which oryctologists, and indeed natural historians, have generally applied to the 

 vertebrae of the pentacrinites, as may be seen in the preceding volume. 

 VOL. III. B 



