CONCLUSION. 441 
little, the total number of bones will exceed a 
hundred and fifty thousand. As each bone was 
furnished with at least two fasciculi of fibres, 
one for contraction, the other for expansion, we 
have a hundred and fifty thousand bones, and 
three hundred thousand fasciculi of fibres equi- 
valent to muscles, in the body of a single Pen- 
tacrinite — an amount of muscular apparatus con- 
cerned in regulating the ossicula of the skeleton, 
infinitely exceeding any that has been yet ob- 
served throughout the entire animal creation.* 
When we consider the profusion of care, and 
exquisite contrivance, that pervades the frame of 
every individual in this species of Pentacrinite, 
forming but one of many members, of the almost 
extinct family of Crinoideans — and when we add 
to this the amount of analogous mechanisms that 
characterize the other genera and species of this 
curious family, — w^e are almost lost in astonish- 
ment, at the microscopic attention that has been 
paid to the welfare of creatures, holding so low 
a place among the inhabitants of the ancient 
deep ;t and we feel a no less irresistible convic- 
tion of the universal presence and eternal agency 
* Tiedemann, in a monograph on Holothuria, Echini, and 
Asterise, states that the common Star-fish has more than three 
thousand httle bones. 
t A frequent repetition of the same parts is proof of the low 
place and comparative imperfection of the animal in which it 
occurs. The number of bones in the human body is but two 
hundred and forty-one, and that of the muscles two hundred and 
thirty-two pairs. South's Dissector's Manual. 
