DISCOID CRINOIDAL ROOTS AND CAMAROCRINUS 251 



authors, that the Camarocrinus structures were roots of Crinoids, 

 serving as floats, from which the stems had parted before their sink 

 ing to place of rest. Bather^ had stated a little more in particular, 

 and Schuchert quotes him as saying of these fossils, that, "another 

 curious modification, perhaps connected with a free-floating existence, 

 was presented by the root of Scyphocrinus [=Loholithus==Camaro- 

 crinus\" Schuchert's discussion, as I read it, throws a shadow over 

 the grounds upon which Bather may have based his behef concern- 

 ing Scyphocrinus, and tends to leave the fossil Camarocrinus as 

 problematic as when James Hall first described it.^ 



Authorities agree, in short, upon these pecuKar balloon-shaped 

 fossils being the modified root-structures of some Crinoid or other. 

 It may also be taken as evident that they floated. The unsolved 

 problem concerns their origin, the interpretation of their structural 

 parts, and their relation to any particular species of Crinoids. 



Camarocrinus appears not to have been considered from the side 

 of the known Crinoidal discoid roots. The nearest approach to 

 such a point of view is the suggestion which will be here quoted about 

 Lichenocrinus and in which Schuchert makes really no progress 

 toward the solution of the problem. "Lichenocrinus represents the 

 nearest approach of a modified Crinoid root to Camarocrinus. It, too, 

 is camerate, the radiating striae seen on weathered examples being 

 vertical plates extending upward from the attached base to the inner 

 side of the surface plates."^ Again, p. 269, "this form when com- 

 pared with Camarocrinus is wholly different, as the base of Licheno- 

 crinus is attached to foreign bodies " Bather, too, cites Lic/^mo- 



crinus as a Crinoid root'^ yet it is quite as problematic as Camarocrinus. 

 Moreover, the comparison of the camarae of Camarocrinus with the 

 camerate structure of Lichenocrinus, as just quoted, is not the right 

 view, as I shall endeavor to show. 



To explain the origin and homologies of Camarocrinus, I wish rather 

 to compare it with such discoid roots as are here described, e. g., 



1 Treatise on Zoology, Vol. Ill, "Echinoderma," p. 135 (1900). 



2 More recently, Butler has found further evidence in support of his view, in the 

 association of Scyphocrinus and Lobolithus remains in Silurian rocks of Cornwall. See 

 Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, Vol. XIII, Part III, pp. 

 191-97, 1907. 



3 Op. cit., p. 268. 4 Op. cit. p. 133. 



