BRITISH FOSSILS. 



DECADE THE FIRST. 



The first Decade of representations of British Fossils is devoted to a 

 selection of Echinoderms, of the Orders Asteriadce and Echinidce. 



With the exception of the Crinoidece and Cystideoe^ no special mono- 

 graphs have been devoted to the illustration of our fossil species of 

 Echinodermata, notwithstanding their acknowledged importance in a 

 geological point of view. The majority of species found in British 

 strata are unfigured in British works ; a very great number are not 

 figured at all, and those of which we possess British figures are, for 

 the most part, delineated either imperfectly or insufiiciently for the 

 demands of science in its present state. This is the more remarkable 

 since, for the description and delineation of numerous species, ample 

 materials exist in collections. 



Of the following plates, one is devoted to figures of all the Silurian 

 star-fishes as yet discovered in British strata. None of these have 

 hitherto been represented in any work. Their names only, accompanied 

 by short descriptive characters, have appeared in the " Synopsis of 

 British Fossil Asteriadse," contained in the second part of the second 

 volume of the " Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain." 

 Some remarkable new forms of star-fishes from the Oolites, and all as 

 yet discovered in the London clay, are figured in the second and third 

 plates. 



The fourth plate is devoted to a representation of the only fossil as 

 yet discovered of the family Euryales, now for the first time described 

 and figured, through the kind co-operation of the Rev. Professor 

 Sedgwick, 



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