172 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



inhabitants of the sea, from the countless myriads of 

 their petrified remains, which fill so many limestone- 

 beds, and compose vast strata of marble, extending 

 over large tracts of country both in Northern Europe 

 and in North America. The substance of this marble 

 is almost as entirely made up of the petrified remains 

 of Encrinites, as a corn-rick is composed of straws. 

 Man applies it to construct his palace and adorn his 

 sepulchre ; but there are few who know, and fewer 

 still who duly appreciate, the surprising fact, that 

 much of this marble is composed of the skeletons 

 of millions of organized beings once endowed with 

 life and susceptible of enjoyment, which, after per- 

 forming for a time the part that was assigned to them 

 in living nature, have contributed their remains to- 

 wards the composition of the mountain masses of the 

 earth. 



Thanks to the unwearied labours of geologists, 

 there is no longer any doubt concerning the real 

 nature of these admirably constructed organisms. 



The stem of the Encrinite was formed of innume- 

 rable joints, piled upon each other like the masonry 

 of a slender Gothic pillar. The name of Entrochi, 

 or wheel-stones, has with much propriety been applied 

 to these insulated joints, and the perforations in the 

 centre of each affording a facility for stringing them 

 as beads, caused them in ancient times to be used as 

 rosaries. In the northern parts of England, indeed, they 

 still retain the appellation of " St. Cuthbert's beads": 



" On a rock by Landisfarn 

 St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 

 The sea-born beads that bear his name." 



