1^6 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



Mespilocrinus blairi (Miller and Gurley) 

 Plate V , figs. 16-19 



Cyathocrinus blairi Miller and Gurley, Bull. 7, Illinois State Museum, 1895, p. 67, pi. 4, figs. 11, 12, 

 not figs. 13-15; ibid., Bull. 8, 1896, p. 50, pi. 3, figs. 21, 22; ibid., Bull. 9, 1896, p. 39. — Miller, N. A. 

 Geol. and Pal., Sec. Appendix, 1897, p. 741, fig. 1328. 



Similar to M. konincki, except that the crown is globose instead of turbi- 

 nate, the calyx broadly rounded below, the column facet smaller, and infra- 

 basals more protuberant. 



The small specimen figured under this name in Bulletin 7, of the Illinois State Museum, 

 plate 4, figures 13-15, must be referred to M. konincki, having a broader base and straighter 

 sides, and it is quite possible that the other specimens are simply more mature, and therefore 

 more rotund, forms of the same species. All of Miller and Gurley's specimens are said to be 

 from the Choteau beds at Sedalia, Missouri, but it must be remembered that the upper part 

 of what is in Missouri called the " Choteau " is the same thing as the Lower Burlington beds 

 in Iowa. In the Sampson collection made at the Sedalia locality, now in the University of 

 Chicago, there are upward of 70 species of crinoids, and nearly all of them are well-known 

 species long since described from Burlington. Miller and Gurley described a large number 

 of new species from there, some of which are good, and some undoubted synonyms. Many 

 of these forms have a wide geographical range. The exposure of Lower Burlington lime- 

 stone which I explored on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains at Lake Valley, New 

 Mexico — fifteen hundred miles from Burlington — yielded about 40 species of crinoids, nearly 

 all of which are prominent and characteristic species at Burlington, such as Dorycrinus 

 unicornis, Cactocrinus proboscidialis, etc., and the general fauna there is very similar to that 

 of the Missouri Choteau. 



Figure 21 on plate 3 of Bulletin 8, Illinois State Museum, represents two anal plates, but 

 I doubt if this is correct; in the genus generally, and in other specimens from the same 

 locality figured both by Miller and Gurley and herein, the posterior basal rises nearly or quite 

 to the level of the radials, and this has probably been mistaken for a first anal. The figure of 

 the summit is somewhat artificially composed, and there is another incorrect figure, 28, on the 

 same plate. 



Types. Miller and Gurley's types cannot be located, and I have copied their figures, 

 which cannot always be relied upon for structural details ; two of them appear to have five 

 infrabasals. I also figure two specimens from the same locality from the Sampson collection, 

 now in the University of Chicago, which show the usual three IBB. 



Horizon and locality. Lower Carboniferous, Choteau (or Lower Burlington beds) ; 

 Sedalia, Missouri. 



Mespilocrinus romingeri n. sp. 



Plate V , figs. 2ia-d, 22 



A medium-sized species. Crown ovoid, 13 mm. high by 10 mm. wide, 

 widest at IAx; height to width at top of RR, 1 to 1.5 ; spread of calyx from base 

 to RR, 1 to 3.5 ; base broadly rounded. 



IBB small; post. B very large; other BB and RR of about equal height; 

 radial facets curved. IBr large, over half as high as RR, and nearly half as 

 high as wide. IIBr 2 or 3. Rays in contact, with dextrorse twist, and plates 

 asymmetric; rounded, short, and broad, infolding just beyond second bifurca- 



