OF CREATION. 137 



seas of an undue proportion of the minuter particles 

 of decaying animal matter. The most singular of 

 all these is the Pentacrinite, an animal so complicated 

 that the number of separate pieces of stone of which 

 its singular skeleton is made up has been calculated 

 to amount to not less than one hundred and fifty 

 thousand. Like the other encrinites (see fig. 44, p. 

 118), it was provided with a long and powerful 

 but moveable column, made up of a vast multitude 

 of lozenge-shaped pieces (see fig. 51), each marked 

 with a curious set of fil 52 



indentations, and each 

 pierced with a cen 

 tral aperture (52,) by 

 means of which a com- 

 munication was kept 

 up during life, enabling 

 the animal probably 

 toattach itself to some /T PBNTACBINITB. 



(Detached Piece and Section of the Stem.) 



marine substance, or a 



floating log of wood. In the Pentacrinite the stem 

 (51, 52) was five-sided, and the body was partly 

 defended by a small cup formed of regular plates 

 rising from the column, and partly inclosed by a 

 multitude of very minute and angular plates fixed 

 on a tough membranous pouch terminating with an 

 extensile proboscis. The body was surrounded also 

 by an incredible multitude of branching arms, form- 

 ing a complicated stony net-work, intended to inter- 

 cept and convey to the stomach the particles of 

 food fit for the animal, which were floating in the 

 water within reach. Many specimens of this fossil 

 are often found together, attached, it would seem, to 



