2 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



bodies known as Camarocrinus or Lobolithus are the distal expansions of 

 Scyphocrinus." 



The following is a summary of the then known facts touching the occur- 

 rence and relations of Camarocrinus and Lobolithus, as marshaled by Schuchert 

 in the work above cited, with his correlations of the horizons at that time: 



i. They occur in widely separated localities; viz., in Bohemia in etage E 1 to E 2 of 

 the Silurian, to be correlated with the American Rochester shales ; in the Manlius division 

 of the Silurian of New York and West Virginia ; in the Helderbergian of Tennessee 

 and Oklahoma. 



2. In the Bohemian localities they occur in some beds associated with Scyphocrinus, 

 and in others where no Scyphocrinus has been found. 



3. In America Scyphocrinus is unknown, and the Camarocrinus bulbs have never been 

 found associated with any other crinoid, except rarely the stemless Edriocrinus attached 

 as to any other foreign body. 



4. They are frequently found in great numbers together in beds where there is no 

 sign of other crinoidal remains. 



5. In no place throughout the formations in which these bodies occur are there 

 corresponding beds replete with crowns, stalks, or even accumulations of separated ossicles 

 of crinoids. 



6. The great majority of the bulbs are found in the strata with the stalked end 

 downward. 



Mr. Schuchert's conclusion was as follows: 



Camarocrinus thus appears to be the float of an unknown crinoid that was held 

 together after the death of the individual by the firmly interlocked double walls of the 

 exterior and the interior, while the crown and stalk dropped away. Under this hypothesis, 

 the float drifted with the sea currents, was finally filled with water, and, the attenuated 

 end being heavier, sank in that position. 1 



This is substantially the same as Hall's interpretation. 



The supposition that these bodies were anchored in the mud with the 

 stalk end directed upward he thinks too much at variance with the facts stated 

 in paragraphs 4 and 6 above. 



He adds finally: 



This writer realizes that the last word has not been said in regard to Camarocrinus, 

 and the present work is offered with the hope that some paleontologist will attack the 

 problem from another point of view. 



In 1906 Mr. F. R. Cowper Reed ' noted the occurrence of Camarocrinus 



at Yemeye, Burma, in rocks designated as Ordovician, but of whose age he 



said the evidence was " not quite conclusive," and described a new species, 



C. asiaticus. In the accompanying remarks upon the genus the author observed : 



The nature of this curious fossil is still a matter of discussion, but the balance of 

 opinion is in favor of regarding it as a float of some crinoid or crinoids, as Hall originally 

 supposed. 



1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 47, pt 2, p. 269, 1904. 



1 The Lower Palaeozoic Fossils of the Northern Shan States, Burma, Mem. Geol. Surv. India, 

 n. s., vol. 2, mem. 3, p. 88. 



