Whiteaves — Uintacrinus and Hemiaster. 287 



Art. XXXII. — Uintacrinus and Hemiaster in the Vancouver 

 Cretaceous ; by J. F. Whiteaves. 



Very few remains of echinodermata have hitherto been 

 found in the Cretaceous rocks of Yancouver and the adjacent 

 islands. Those enumerated in the latest and most complete 

 list of the fossils of these rocks, published by the Geological 

 Survey of Canada in 1902, are only fragments of the test of a 

 regular echinicl ; portions of the ray of a iive-rayed starfish ; a 

 five-lobed joint of the column of a pentacrinite ; and a frag- 

 ment of the basal portion of the dorsal cup of a crinoid. 

 Although three of the classes of echinodermata were then 

 known to be represented in these rocks, it was by such frag- 

 mentary specimens that it was scarcely possible to determine 

 them, even generically. 



But, in a collection of Cretaceous fossils from various locali- 

 ties on or near Yancouver Island, recently sent to the Museum 

 of the Canadian Geological Survey by Mr. Walter Harvey, 

 there are two fairly good specimens of a crinoid, and as many 

 as forty of a spatangoid or heart urchin. 



The two crinoicls evidently belong to the same species, and 

 are obviously referable to the sessile genus Uintacrinus, 

 Grinnell. 



One of them is a comparatively large cast of the interior of 

 a dorsal cup, crushed nearly flat, upon a piece of brittle shale 

 from the north bank of the Cowichan River, Y. I., about a 

 mile above the bridges at Duncan's, collected by Mr. Harvey 

 in 1903. It is well preserved and shows a monocyclic base, 

 with an undivided centrale, five small basals, five large radials, 

 the third circlet of plates, and a few plates of the fourth. In 

 their shape and arrangement, the whole of these plates corre- 

 sj)ond very well with those of some regular, monocyclic speci- 

 mens of the dorsal cup of Uintacrinus, as figured in the latest 

 memoir on that genus by the Hon. Frank Springer (1901) and 

 as shown in some fine specimens of U. socialis from Kansas, 

 kindly forwarded by Mr. Springer for comparison. 



The other specimen is a small, badly preserved and rather 

 worn cast of the interior of a calyx, also crushed nearly flat, 

 from similar shales about a mile south from Vesuvius Bay, 

 Salt Spring Island, in the Strait of Georgia, collected by Mr. 

 Harvey in 1902, 



Both of these specimens are clearly referable to the genus 

 Uintacrinus, but they are scarcely sufficiently perfect for 

 specific determination or description, though it must be 

 admitted that they show no characters by which they can be 



