410 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1753. 



not a vegetable, being a species of cluster-polype, consisting of many bodies 

 unitfed at one common base. This specimen appears to have 23 distinct ones; 

 he saw another, tliat was taken at the same time, that had between 30 and 40. 

 Each body is furnished at the top with 8 arms or tentacula, which expand them- 

 selves in the fonn of a star. Each arm is again furnished on each side with a 

 row of small fibres, which seem to do the office of fingers. In the centre of 

 the 8 arms appears the mouth, surrounded by 6 little semicircular lips standing 

 upright. 



On dissecting one of the bodies lengthwise, it appeared to consist of a strong 

 muscle, contracted into little waves or wrinkles. In the little cavities of these 

 are sundry small seed-like particles, perhaps the spawn of the animal: when 

 magnified, they appeared of a spherical form, a little compressed. To the centre 

 of the base, where the cluster of polypes unite, and make one body, there 

 grows a four-square bony stem of 6 feet long, having 4 grooves, one on each 

 side. At the joining to the fleshy part, the bony stem is very small, and a little 

 twisted, like the turn of a screw, extending a membrane like a bladder, for 

 about 2 or 3 inches in length, and nearly an inch in breadth, from the fleshy part 

 downwards. The membrane then begins to close insensibly, and becomes a cuti- 

 cular covering to the bony stem, which now increases gradually, till it becomes 

 a quarter of an inch square. Within 5 or 6 inches of the bottom of the stem 

 the bony part begins to grow smaller, till it comes to a point; and the cuticular 

 part becomes cartilaginous, and supplies this tapering part with a quantity of this 

 elastic substance, equal to the deficiency of the bone. The use of this mem- 

 brane, or bladder-like skin at the top of the stem, may possibly be intended to 

 give the animal a power to raise and fall itself in the water at pleasure. It ap- 

 pears from the twist in one part of the stem, that the stem, when very small, 

 and not so bony, had met with some violence, that had turned it out of its direc- 

 tion; the mark of which has still grown on with it: for the stem of the other 

 specimen, taken at the same time, was quite even. 



On cutting it across, they discovered the distinct laminae to each angle, rising 

 from a small point in the centre, and separated by a cross, that joins the opposite 

 grooves. On putting a thin shaving of it into vinegar, a strong eftervescence 

 was immediately raised, which dissolved the gritty or coralline part, and disco- 

 vered the fine membranes that enclosed it. These two substances seem to com- 

 pose this bony, ivory, or coral-like stem. 



The disposition of the polypes, with regard to each other, is represented by a 

 cross section in pi. Q, fig. f, where 10 occupy the outward circle, g are in the 

 next, and 4 are in the centre. 



Mr. Ellis learned that it was taken in the latitude of 79° north; which is 

 within 11° of the pole, and 80 English miles from the coast of Greenland, by 



