Mr. F. A. Bather oh British Fossil Crinoids. 307 



Parkinson's c Organic Remains of a Former World ' (1811) : 

 his figures and descriptions, though both excellent and careful, 

 were unaccompanied by names on the Linnean system ; 

 since, however, they were constantly referred to by Von 

 Schlotheim in his ' Petrefaktenkunde ' (1820), they are of 

 importance in enabling us to identify the types of the German 

 author. George Cumberland, of Bristol, the author of a 

 paper in the ' Transactions of the Geological Society ' (1819) 

 and of ' Reliquiae Conservator ' (1826), is another whose work 

 is liable to be passed over on account of its deficiency in 

 systematic names ; but, when we compare the completeness 

 of description and the accuracy of draughtsmanship shown by 

 these two early authors with the two lines and a half of dog- 

 Latin diagnosis unelucidated by so much as a diagram that 

 are nowadays thought enough to bear the weight of a specific 

 name, then we shall not doubt for long which method is the 

 more advantageous to science. 



The morphology and classification of the group were first 

 set on a satisfactory basis by J. S. Miller in ' The Natural 

 History of the Crinoidea ' (1821), where 11 genera, including 

 EncrinuSj Pentacrinus, and Comatula of former authors, and 

 26 species were described. J. Phillips, in the ' Geology'of 

 Yorkshire' (1836), originated many names of both species 

 and genera ; while three years later the same author revealed 

 in Murchison's ' Silurian System ' the existence of many 

 types previously unknown. The British Devonian Crinoids 

 alluded to by Sedgwick and Murchison and J. de C. Sowerby 

 in 1840 were more fully described by Phillips in the l Palaeozoic 

 Fossils of Cornwall &c.' (1841). The Carboniferous Crinoids 

 of Ireland next received attention at the hands of R. Griffith 

 (1842), J. E. Portlock (1843), and especially F. M'Coy 

 (1844). ' The Synopsis of the Silurian Fossils of Ireland ' by 

 the last-named palaeontologist, though bearing date 1846, does 

 not seem to have been published till 1862. Meanwhile in 

 1842 T. and T. Austin had begun to publish in the ' Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History ' a series of learned papers, 

 the practical value of which has always been very seriously 

 diminished by the absence of illustration. To a slight extent 

 this omission was repaired by their ' Monograph on Recent 

 and Fossil Crinoidea,' which appeared at intervals from 1843 

 to 1849*. Other early workers in this fruitful field were 

 W. A. Lewis and J. C. Pearce. 



* The destruction of the original covers renders it difficult to settle the 

 dates of the various parts with exactness ; but a consideration of all the 



