80 



BULLETIN 64, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



stone. As the specimen was found on the banks of the Cumberland 

 River this may be the correct horizon. 

 Cat. No. 39903, U.S.N.M. 



Suborder ACTINOCRINOIDEA Bather. 



Family ACTINOCRINID^ Bather. 

 Genus ACTINOCRINUS Miller. 



ACTINOCRINUS MAGNIFICUS Wachsmuth and Springer. 



Plate 1, fig. 1. 



Actinocrinites humboldti Troost, Proc. Amer. Ass. Adv. Sci., II (read 1849), 1850, 



p. 60 (nomen nudum); MSS., 1850. 

 Actinocrinus humboldti Shumard, Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, II, No. 2, 1866, 



p. 344 (catalogue name). — Wachsmuth and Springer, Rev. Palaeocrinoidea, 



II, 1881, p. 225 (catalogue name). — Miller, North Amer. Geol. and Pal., 1889, 



p. 218 (catalogue name). 

 Actinocrinus magnificus Wachsmuth and Springer, North Amer. Crinoidea 



Camerata, 1897, p. 567, pi. liii, fig. 2.— Weller, Bull. No. 153, U. S. Geol. 



Surv., 1898, p. 60 (catalogue name). 



The following description is by Troost: 



This crinoid was probably the most magnificent species that ever has existed. Its 

 gigantic size, its elegant form, the beauty and regularity of the ridges which orna- 

 mented its surface, — and, if we supply in imagination the parts that are wanting to 

 complete the whole cup, with its coronal integument and high proboscis, and then 

 add its lofty structure of hands and graceful tentaculated fingers — we form a structure 

 equal — I had almost said — to the most charming object in nature. It is no wonder 

 that such a body composed of plates and joints that were only kept together by carti- 

 lage, is now so much mutilated; in fact with diligent search, repeated several times, 

 I found only fragments, and nothing could enable me to complete it beyond the part 

 represented in the figure, « which is an exact representation of what is in my collec- 

 tion, except that the original specimen is more or less crushed, which is remedied in 

 drawings. From the moment I became acquainted with it, I dedicated this splendid 

 species to Baron von Humboldt in whose company I had often the honor to spend 

 some of my time when in Paris. 



I presume the proboscis and the whole superstructure was very large; I have a 

 proboscis attached to a coronal integument which is very elevated in the centre, and 

 composed of polygonal tumous plates. This proboscis which is smooth, is about 5 

 cent. met. long and yet the upper part is broken off — very probably it belonged not 

 to this species, but to a smaller individual, the coronal cover being too minute for the 

 specimen here represented. 



Discovered near White's Creek Springs, Davidson County, Tennessee. 



Observations. — This fine species is fully described by Wachsmuth 

 and Springer. The plates of the Tennessee specimens are larger 

 than those from Indiana, but appear to be otherwise similar. 



Troost' s figure is largely a restoration. The calyx plates are suf- 

 ficiently preserved to show their number and arrangement as repre- 

 sented, but the arms are not preserved. 



a Doctor Troost's manuscript contained a figure exactly like that of fig. 1, pi. 1, 

 and drawn from the same specimen, omitting the arms which are not preserved but 

 are restored in the drawing of fig. 1. — E. W. 



