STRUCTURE OF LILY ENCRINITE. 321 



and fingers (see PL 47, figs. 1, 2, 3. and PL 50, figs. 1, 2, 

 3.,) the surface of each bone articulates with that adjacent 

 to it, with the most perfect reguL-irity and nicety of adjust- 

 ment. So exact, and methodical is this arrangement, even 

 to the extremity of its minutest tentacula, that it is just as 

 improbable, that the metals which compose the wheels of a 

 chronometer should for themselves have calculated and 

 arranged the form and number of the teeth of each respective 

 wheel, and that these wheels should have placed themselves 

 in the precise position, fitted to attain the end resulting from 

 the combined action of them all, as for the successive hun- 

 dreds and thousands of little bones that compose an Encri- 

 nite, to have arranged themselves, in a position subordinate 

 to the end produced by the combined effect of their united 

 Mechanism; each acting its peculiar part in harmonious 

 subordination to the rest, and all conjointly producing a 

 result which no single series of them acting separately, could 

 possibly have eflfected. 



In PL 50 I have selected from Goldfuss, Parkinson, and 

 Miller, details of the structure of the body and upper extre- 

 mities of Encrinites Moniliformis, or Lily Encrinite, in which 

 the component parts ' are indicated by letters, explained in 

 the annexed note; and I must refer my readers to these 

 authors for minute descriptions of the individual forms and 

 uses of each successive series of plates.* 



* " On the summit of the vertebral column are placed successive series of 

 little bones, see Pi. 50, Fig. 4. which from their position and uses may be 

 termed the Pelvis E, Scapula H, Costal F, forming (with the pectoral and 

 capital plates) a kind of sub-globular body (see PI. 48. PI. 49. Fig. 1. PI. 50, 

 Figs. 1, 2,) having the mouth in its centre and containing the viscera and 

 stomach of the animal, from which the nourishing fluids were admitted to 

 an alimentary cavity within the column, and also carried to the arms and 

 tentaculated fingers." From the Scapula (H) proceeded the five arms, (PI. 

 50, Fig. 1, K) which, as they advanced, subdivided into hands (M) and 

 fingers (N) terminating in minute tentacula (PI. 50. Figs. 2,3,) the number 

 of which extended to many thousands. These hands and fingers are repre- 

 sented as closed, or nearly closed, in PI. 48. and Pi. 49, Fig. 1. and PI. 50 



