332 CONCLUSION. 



The number of bones in the fingers and tentacula of the 

 Briarean Pentacrinite amounts at least to a hundred thou- 

 sand ; if to these we add fifty thousand more for the ossicula 

 of the side-arms, which is much too httle, the total number 

 of bones will exceed a hundred and fifty thousand. As each 

 bone was furnished with at least two fasciculi of fibres, one 

 for contraction, the other for expansion, we have a hundred 

 and fifty thousand bones, and three hundred thousand fasci- 

 culi of fibres equivalent to muscles, in the body of a single 

 Pentacrinite — an amount of muscular apparatus concerned 

 in regulating the ossicula of the skeleton, infinitely exceeding 

 any that has been yet observed throughout the entire animal 

 creation.* 



When we consider the profusion of care, and exquisite 

 contrivance, that pervades the frame of every individual in 

 this species of Pentacrinite, forming but one of many mem- 

 bei's, of the almost extinct family of Crino'ideans — and when 

 we add to this the amount of analogous mechanisms that cha- 

 racterize the other genera and species of this curious fami- 

 ly, — we are almost lost in astonishment, at the microscopic 

 attention that has been paid to the welfare of creatures, hold- 

 ing so low a place among the inhabitants of the ancient 

 deep ;f and we feel a no less irresistible conviction of the 

 univ^ersal presence and eternal agency of Creative care, in 

 the lower regions of organic life, than is forced upon us by 

 the contemplation of those highest combinations of animal 

 mechanism, which occur in that paragon of animal organi- 

 zation, the corporeal frame of Man. 



* Tiedemann, in a monograph on Holotlmria, Echini, and Asteriee, states 

 that the common Star-fish lias more than three thousand llltle bones. 



f A frequent repetition of the same i)arts is proof of the low place 

 and comparative imperfection of tlie animal in which it occurs. The 

 number of bones in the human body is but two hundred and forty-one, and 

 that of the muscles two hundred and tlilrty-two pairs. South's Dissector's 

 Manual. 



