VOL. LII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQl 



Starstones, AsteruCy and yhtropodia, which have been found in many Parts 

 of this Kingdom* By John Ellis, Esq., F. R.S. p. 357- 



The writers on natural history have been much at a loss to discover to what 

 kind of animals those petrified bodies have properly belonged, which are known' 

 to us by the name of trochites, entrochi, carpophylloides, encrini, asteriae, &c. 

 and therefore it is with the greater pleasure Mr. E. lays before the Royal Society 

 a recent animal of the rarest of this class. 



Mr. Mason of Barbadoes, in the month of May 1760, brought Mr. E. this 

 rare lythophyton, as he called it. Dr. Bruce mentions, that they are the inhabi- 

 tants of those seas, and that he is in hopes of sending over a more perfect spe- 

 cimen. 



Mr. Guettard, that able and curious naturalist, has given, in the Memoirs of 

 the Academy of Sciences at Paris, published in 1761, for the year 1755, a most 

 minute description and dissection of an animal of this kind, from the curious 

 cabinet of Madam Bois Jourdain at Paris ; it was sent from Martinico by the 

 name of palma marina: the head of it, being more perfect than this, has some 

 resemblance to the branches of a palm tree. 



As it comes nearest to the fossils called encrini, or lilii lapidei, Mr. E. still 

 keeps that name, and calls it, encrinus, capite stellato ramoso-dichotomo, stipite 

 pentagono equisetiformi. 



The stem and head of this animal, in its present state, measures about 14 

 inches. The stem is about 13 inches in height, and about the third of an inch 

 in diameter, lessening a little towards the top ; it is formed of pentagonous joints, 

 or vertebrae, placed regularly over each other, which are of a testaceous sub- 

 stance, and united by very thin cartilages, as appears by examining minutely the 

 base of the lowest vertebra, where it is fastened to the starry indentures of the 

 joint; this makes the vertebrae capable of bending at the will of the animal, in 

 any direction. 



If we examine the 5 furrows or channels along the stem, we shall discover a 

 small hole between every vertebra, and in the centre of the base of the lowest, 

 we shall find a small hole there, which probably communicates through the mid- 

 dle of all the vertebrae to the cavity in the centre of the head. Along this stem, 

 at different distances, from an inch and quarter to a quarter of an inch in length, 

 we observe many series of 5 cylindrical jointed arms, each series of equal length, 

 and placed in a wheel or whirl-shaped form like the equisetum or horsetail plant. 

 Each arm is inserted in one of the 5 cavities of a vertebra, and each joint into 

 each other; that the upper end of one joint inclines Over the lower end of the 

 next to it, which it appears at the same time to inclose with a small margin. 



* This curious zoophyte is the Isis Asteria of Linneu*. 



