Ixii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



This history of the progress of the discovery of the true character 

 of these singular forms, — how, from being first looked at in an in- 

 verted position, and being considered as marine plants, they came to 

 be regarded as corals, — and how the illustrious Blumenbach first 

 assigned to them their true position in the scale of organic life, — is 

 one of the most remarkable and most interesting in the range of 

 palaeontographical literature. But I must refer you to the memoir 

 itself for the details. 



Before describing the different species, the authors enter into ge- 

 neral considerations respecting the structure, habits, and movements 

 of these animals, derived partly from a careful examination of the 

 numerous fossil remains, partly by analogy from the investigation of 

 their two living congeners, pointing out the different families and 

 genera, and the special arrangement, forms, and number of the differ- 

 ent plates of the cup, by which they are respectively characterized. 

 One of the authors promises in a future work to apply the terminology 

 here adopted to all the Crinoidean genera, and to distribute them 

 into natural families. The eleven genera described in this memoir 

 are, — Cyathocrimis, Poteriocrinus, Rhodocriniis, MespiJocrinus, Gra- 

 phiocrinus, Forbesioct^inus, Actinocrimis, Dichocrinus, PlatycrinuSy 

 Lageniocrinus, and Pentremites. 



This is followed by a short descriptive notice by M. De Koninck 

 of a new genus of Crinoidea from the carboniferous beds of England, 

 to which he has given the name of Woodocrinus macrodactylus. 



Prof. Hans Bruno Geinitz has added to the stock of information 

 on fossil botany for which we are already indebted to him, by the recent 

 publication of his work, entitled ** Darstellung der Flora des Haini- 

 chen-Ebersdorfer und des Flohaer Kohlenbassins," 4to, with a folio 

 atlas of fourteen plates, as also by a larger work on the fossils of the 

 Carboniferous formation in Saxony, illustrated by thirty-six large 

 engravings of the well-preserved fossil plants of that region. His 

 examination of this palteozoic flora has confirmed the observations 

 already made by Prof. C. F. Naumann on geological evidence alone, 

 that the Coal formation of Hainich-Ebersdorf is older than the Coal 

 basin of Floha-Gliickelsberg. The former belongs to what the 

 Germans still persist in calling upper Grauwacke, the equivalent of 

 the Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone. The investigations of 

 Prof. Geinitz have shown that the carboniferous deposits of Zwickau, 

 to which the work in question principally refers, are of the same age 

 as the younger Coal-beds of Floha-Gliickelsberg. 



The author has endeavoured to exhibit the result of his investiga- 

 tions by the establishment of four distinct zones of vegetable life 

 (Vegetation's Giirteln*), each of which is characterized by a different 

 flora. 



1st Zone. — Hainich-Ebersdorf; characterized by a preponderance of 

 ^agenaria^ particularly ^. Veltheimiana : he calls it the Sagenaria-coal. 



2nd Zone. — Planitz and Zwickau ; chiefly characterized by SigiU 

 laria, — therefore called the Sigillaria-coal. 



* There is something quaint in this use of the word * gtirtel,' from which our 

 synonymous word * girdle' is derived, to express a * zone/ 



