INTRODUCTION. 



In the year 1878 the Royal Academy of Science of Sweden earned the gratitude 

 of zoologists by the publication of the »Iconographia Crinoideorum in stratis Sueciie silu- 

 ricis fossilium», the materials for whieh had been accumnlated and arranged for many 

 years bv Professor N. P. Angelin. Du ring the thirteen years that have elapsed since the 

 appearance of this important work the study of extinct Crinoids has advanced rapidly, 

 together with onr knowledge of their living descendants. Those, however, who have been 

 working on this snbject in other countries, have not hitherto found time or opportunity 

 to exaniine for themselves the magnificent collections in the Riksmuseum at Stockholm; 

 and yet it has beconie obvious to many of thcm that, before further use could be made 

 of Angelins work, such an examination was absolutely necessary. Consequently, when I 

 proposed to myself the task of describing, either afresh or for the first time, the British 

 Fossil Crinoids, I was soon aware that no work done on the Silurian forms could have a 

 firm foundation until the Swedisb fossils had been re-examined in the light of modern 

 knowledge. In any case the aifinity already recognised between the contemporaneous 

 faunas of Siluria and Gotland rendered close comparison of the species absolutely im- 

 ])erative. 



The vacations of two years spent in Stockholm, namely, from August 19th to Sep- 

 tember 19th, 1890, and from April 28th to June 5th, 1891, have enabled me to study 

 very carefully a small part of the Angelin collection of Crinoids: the rest of the collection 

 was willingly left to afford excuse for further visits to the delightful capital. The main 

 results of this examination are those which, through the kindness of Prof. G. Lindström, 

 I am now permitted to lay before you. 



As all specialists on Crinoids will have expected, onr views as to the value of the 

 »Iconographia-. must be considerably modified; and it will be in v duty first to give a short 

 general criticism of Professor Angelin's book. 



The man of science, whose work is not for himself, but, as the emblem of this 

 Academy reminds us, for those that come after, suffcrs, to a greater extent perhaps than 

 any other human worker, the härd lot of being abused by bis successors. »On the stairs 

 that he has built they will mount: at the clumsv work they will laugh; when the stones 

 roll they will curse him.» 1 ) The scientific critic is compelled to judge of a mans work 



') Olive Sciireiner, »The Ston of an African Färiu . 



