TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 65 
As a concluding observation, allow me to remark how curiously the threefold 
physical agencies that are in simultaneous operation on the crust of the globe were 
typified in the old heathen mythology. The atmosphere which envelopes the land 
and rests upon the sea, the ocean which fills up the deeper hollows of the earth’s 
surface, and the nether-seated source of heat and force that lies beneath the crust 
of the earth are each personified in it as a great divinity. If one of the old Greek 
poets were to revisit the earth, and clothe these ideas in his own imagery, he would 
tell us in sonorous verse of Zeus (or Jupiter), the God of the Air, ruling all things 
upon the land with his own absolute and pre-eminent power; of Poseidon (or 
eptune) governing the depths of the ocean, but shaking the shores which en- 
circle it; and of Hades (or Pluto), confined to his own dark regions below, tyran- 
nizing with all the sternness of a force irresistible by anything which can there 
oppose it, but rarely manifesting itself by any open action within the realms of the 
other divinities. 
On an Early Stage in the Development of Comatula, and its Paleontological 
Relations. By Professor Atuman, M.D., IRS. 
The subject of this communication was a small Echinodermatous animal, a single 
specimen of which was obtained by the author on the south coast of Devon, 
where it was found attached to one of the larger Sertularidé, dredged from about 
four fathoms’ depth. The author regarded it as one of the early stages in the de- 
velopment of Comatula, and though quite distinct from the well-known Pentacrinus 
stage of this crinoid, believed that it had been witnessed both by Thompson and 
Dujardin, but not correctly described or figured by either of them. It consisted of 
a body borne upon the summit of a long jointed stem. The body had the form of 
two pyramids placed base to base. The upper pyramid is formed of five triangular 
valve-like plates, moveably articulated upon the upper side of the lower pyramid, 
and capable of being separated from one another at the will of the animal, so as to 
present the appearance of an expanding flower-bud, and again approximated till 
their edges are in contact and the original pyramidal form restored. From between 
the edges of these plates, long flexile tentaculoid appendages, which must not be 
confounded with the permanent arms of Comatula, are protruded in the expanded 
state of the animal, and within these is a circle of shorter, more rigid, rod-like ap- 
endages which seem to be moveably articulated to the upper side of the calyx, 
immediately round the centre, where it is almost certain that the mouth is placed. 
The lower pyramid or proper calyx is mainly formed of five large hexagonal plates, 
separated from the summit of the stem by a zone, whose composition out of distinct 
lates could not be demonstrated, and haying five small tetragonal plates interca- 
ated between their upper angles. In assigning their proper value to the several 
plates thus entering into the body, the author regarded the lower zone, which rests 
immediately on the stem, as simply a metamorphosed joint of the stem itself, while 
the verticil of plates, situated immediately above this, is the true basilar portion of 
the calyx. The five sma'l intercalated plates are the equivalents of the radialia, 
and destined to carry afterwards the true arms of the crinoid ; while the five tri- 
angular plates which constitute the sides of the upper pyramid are cnterradialia. 
Professor Allman considered the little animal described in this communication as 
of special interest, in the light which it seemed capable of throwing on the real 
nature of certain aberrant groups of Crinotdea, such as Haplocrinus, Coccocrinus, &c., 
in which the calyx supports a more or less elevated pyramidal roof, composed en- 
tirely or in great part of five triangular plates, which find their homologues in the 
five sides of the pyramidal roof of the little crinoid which formed the subject of his 
paper. fig 
On Bituminous Schists and their Relation to Coal. By Professor Anstep, /.R.S. 
The occurrence of rocks of all geological periods, and in most parts of the world, 
containing a sufficient quantity of the mineral hydrocarbon to be worth distilling 
present depth, width, and regularity of many of them are doubtless ascribable to glacier 
action. i 
1862, i) 
