DAEMONELIX CIGARS AND DAEMONELIX IRREGULAR. 309 



it is but a frail vertical form, somewhat spiral, without branch or division 

 (see plate 33, figures 13, 14, 15, 16). 



The fact that the branches as well as the upper and lower extremities 

 terminate in blunt, rounded ends, completely grown over and sealed, 

 makes it difficult to determine whether the cigars grew upward or down- 

 ward, but is conclusive evidence that these frail forms, with exit and 

 entrance capped over and sealed, could not have been burrows. Though 

 strikingly similar, three or four distinct forms are already recognized. 



Superficially they are characterized by the same fibrous mat surround- 

 ing the same core of sand as in the case of the two preceding forms. At 

 the tip ends the structure is densest and best preserved. 



Structurally there is not visible to the microscope a variation from the 

 types already described. 



DAEMONELIX IRREGULAR. 



Continuing the ascent of the canyon, one comes next to the middle 

 Daemonelix beds, characterized by slender, branching, vertical, spiral 

 forms, which the party called Daemonelix u irregular " in contradistinc- 

 tion to the Daemonelix regular, or Devil's corkscrews, found in the upper 

 beds (see plate 34, figures 17, 18, 19). 



As to mode of occurrence, it may be stated, they are found through a 

 vertical range of six to eight meters in the middle beds, never occurring 

 below this level, although above it they are occasionally met with well 

 up to the topmost beds. They are always vertical or nearly so. Like 

 the cigars, these irregular twisters end in blunt rounded terminations, 

 sealed or capped with plant fibers, leaving neither exit nor entrance for 

 the supposed occupants of the so-called burrows. One complete speci- 

 men and many nearly so have been found, as shown in figures 17, 18, 19. 

 There is extreme perplexity and embarrassment in accounting for the 

 irregular form shown in figure 19, with its peculiar top and its pair of 

 spirals branching dichotomously below. No explanation is adequate. 

 It is one of those singular cases which cannot be, yet is. The inference 

 from the branching is that the seaweeds or rootlets, or whatever organism 

 it is, grew downward in the sand, not upward in the water. Assertions 

 cannot be made. This much, however, is certain, that the irregular 

 twisters, like their supposed precursors, the cakes, balls, and cigars, are 

 unmistakably organic, consisting of a superficies of exactly the same 

 simple fibers, surrounding in a similar manner a core of sand, penetrated 

 by scattered tubules. Neither the eye nor the glass can detect any 

 structural difference whatever between these and all preceding as well as 

 succeeding forms. The gross structure and the minute are identical. In 



