504 FOSSIL INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



numerous laminae, which leave between them angular spaces, 

 and assume somewhat of the starred form. In the longitudinal 

 section, we can perceive a series of cavities, sometimes regu- 

 larly comparted, which seems to indicate that the interior of 

 the branches was partitioned ; but these cavities seem owing, 

 at least in a great measure, to a confirmed crystallization of 

 the calcareous part of the organized body. The colour of this 

 calcareous substance is a dull red, contrasting strongly with 

 the whiteness of that by which the mass is encrusted. Consi- 

 dering the fine preservation of a polyparium of this prodigious 

 size, we may be led to believe that it has undergone no sudden 

 displacement; and that it was engaged, by the calcareous 

 matter which surrounds it, in the place where it was originally 

 produced. 



" The disposition of its stars, spread over the entire external 

 surface, removes it from the order of astraea, which is thus 

 characterized by M. Lamouroux : — stars, or cellules, circum- 

 scribed, placed at the upper surface of the polyparium." 



M. Lesauvage thinks that this polyparium ought to be placed 

 among the madreporic animals, as a new genus. 



Encrinus is a name, first given by Ellis, to a very curious 

 and little-known animal, whose exact situation in the natural 

 series may even yet be pronounced rather uncertain. It has 

 been variously allocated, by zoologists, in the radiated class — 

 being sometimes made a genus of the family of Asterias, and 

 sometimes placed near the Iris. This animal has, perhaps, 

 not yet been examined with all the attention which it merits ; 

 for, if it do not exist in our present seas, it is an undoubted 

 fact that it must have been very common there formerly, since 

 nothing can be more multiplied, in certain calcareous strata, 

 than those fossil remains, known under the names of entrochi, 

 encrinites, &c. 



The characters of this genus, in the present state of science, 

 may be thus given : — A stelliform or radiated body, composed 

 of five principal rays, subdivided into three or four articulated 



