200 ORGANIC REMAINS. 



the sections of minute tubes. As they exhibit no appearance of stars, 

 they cannot be properly termed madrepores \ but they appear con- 

 nected with the coral tribes, and ought rather to be considered as 

 millepores than alcyonia. This remark may apply even to the digitated 

 fossils, which bear a striking resemblance to some recent madrepores 

 as well as recent alcyonia. Some of the chalk fossils called alcyonites, 

 appear to be madrepores, which have had their organization destroyed 

 or altered ; others appear to be millepores. To this last family we 

 may assign some chalk fossils, that exhibit a collection of minute, 

 straight, parallel fibres, not unlike petrified wood. 



Next to the corals, it will be proper to place that remarkable 

 class of zoophytes distinguished by the names encrinites and 

 PENTACRiNiTES, or the more familiar term stone lilies. These fossils 

 bear a strong resemblance to plants, having stalks from which 

 numerous branches diverge, and many of them having heads like 

 those of lilies. Their stalks and branches are columns of small 

 joints, or vertebra, each of which, when detached, shews on its disk 

 the figure of a star or a flower; a circumstance which serves to 

 connect this family with the madrepores. These detached joints are 

 well known by the name of St. Cuthberfs beads. 



Animals of this kind are rarely found in a recent state, but their 

 fossil remains occur in great abundance, and in an endless variety of 

 forms. They are arranged into two divisions ; the encrinites, which 

 have I'ounded stalks ; and the jjentacrinites, whose stalks or columns 

 are pentagonal. These two divisions are nearly allied, for the head 

 of the encrinite has a pentagonal base, audits joints often display 

 a star with five points, or a flower with five petals. We meet with 

 portions of both in the same specimens ; and indeed, had not the 

 pentacrinus been discovered recent, we might have supposed, that the 

 whole had originally rounded columns, but that in the pentacrinites 

 the exterior part of the columns had peeled off, leaving the interior 

 pentagonal part displayed. 



