ATTACHMEMT TO EXTRANEOUS BODIES. 437 
solid Secretions, like those of the Pear Encrinite, 
by which this Pentacrinite could have been fixed 
permanently to the bottom, and the further fact 
of its being frequently found in contact with 
masses of drifted wood converted into jet (PL 52, 
Fig. 3.), leads us to infer that the Briarean Pen- 
tacrinite was a locomotive animal, having the 
power of attaching itself temporarily either to 
extraneous floating bodies, or to rocks at the 
bottom of the sea, either by its side arms, or by 
a moveable articulated small root* 
* The specimen of Briarean Pentacrinite at PI. 52, Fig. 3. from 
the Lias at Lyme Regis, adheres laterally to a portion of imperfect 
jet, which forms part of a thin bed of Lignite, in the Lias marl, 
between Lyme and Charmouth. 
Throughout nearly its whole extent, Miss Anning has constantly 
observed in this Lignite the following curious appearances : The 
lower surface only is covered by a stratum, entirely composed of 
Pentacrinites, and varying from one to three inches in thick- 
ness ; they lie nearly in a horizontal position, with the foot stalks 
uppermost, next to the lignite. The greater number of these 
Pentacrinites are preserved in such high perfection, that they 
must have been buried in the clay that now invests them before 
decomposition of their bodies had taken place. It is not un- 
common to find large slabs several feet long, whose lower sur- 
face only presents the arms and fingers of these fossil animals, 
expanded like plants in a Hortus Siccus ; whilst the upper surface 
exhibits only a congeries of stems in contact with the under 
surface of the lignite. The greater number of these stems are 
usually parallel to one another, as if drifted in the same direction 
by the current in which they last floated. 
The mode in which these animal remains are thus collected im- 
mediately beneath the Lignite, and never on its upper surface, 
seems to shew that the creatures had attached themselves, in large 
