78 Revieics — 8. A. Miller's American Crinoids. 



12, IB "V" Z IE "W S. 



I. — NoKTH American Ckinoidologt. 

 S. A. Miller. — Structure, Classification, and Arrangement op 

 American Paleozoic Crinoids into Families. Araer. Geol. 

 Vol. vi. No. o, pp. 275-286, and No. 6, pp. 340-357. Minnea- 

 polis, Nov. Dec. 1890. 



THAT erudite and enthusiastic writer Mr. Samuel A. Miller of 

 Cincinnati, already famous through his " North American 

 Geology and Palaeontology," described by Prof. John Collett as 

 " the most valuable and learned work on Geology and Paleontology 

 ever published," again compels the attention of the scientific world 

 by the elaborate article before us. 



Mr. Miller has an extensive and peculiar acquaintance with 

 Crinoids, i.e. with those from the Paleeozoic rocks of N. America, and 

 has proposed a large number of generic and specific names, some of 

 which will probably stand. What more is needed ? Indeed, Mr. 

 Miller himself ridicules P. Herbert Carpenter for supposing that a 

 knowledge of recent forms is of any advantage to the student of 

 fossils. Besides this, Mr. Miller's specific names are never spelled 

 with a capital letter,^ and they can all be translated by the aid of 

 Andrews'* Latin Lexicon. But, for all hi^ learning, Mr. Miller 

 is not proud ; he modestly writes as though he could read no language 

 except his own and English. Mr. Miller has too that rare merit in 

 a scientific man — consistency : he never (or hardly ever) changes 

 his opinion, and consequently has earned the right to abuse Wachs- 

 muth for changing his with the progress of knowledge. At the 

 same time it must not be supposed that the classification now put 

 forward by Mr. Miller is the same as that adopted in his "North 

 American Geology." He is careful to explain that it was not then 

 his object "to write an original treatise on any one branch." We 

 are surprised, for that classification struck us as one of the most 

 original we had ever seen. 



Discarding the puerile speculations of recent writers as wholly 

 unsupported by fact, Mr. Miller reverts to a classification according 

 to superficial similarities of structure, a method which, with the 

 advantage of simplicity, combines the sanction of antiquity. He, at 

 least, will not follow the vagaries of those who consider a certain 

 character of family value in one place and of barely specific import- 

 ance in another. 



Mr. Miller cannot away with your Morphologist ; hence he has 

 never accepted the view that the median circlet of plates in the cup 

 of a dicyclic Crinoid is homologous with the proximal circlet in a 

 monocyclic Crinoid. For him the " basal " plates are always those 

 next the stem ; to these the animal was, he states, attached by 

 ligament : hence these plates are " the most important in classifica- 

 tion of any of the plates in the calyx," The difficulties presented 

 by the numerous pseudo-monocyclic forms do not trouble Mr. Miller, 

 1 Except wlien a patriotic priater insists on a large A for " Americanus." 



