CONCLUSION. 
441 
the total number of bones will exceed a 
hundred and fifty thousand. As each bone was 
^•^'rnished with at least two fasciculi of fibres, 
oiie for contracfion, the other for expansion, we 
have a hundred and fifty thousand bones, and 
*^hrec hundred thousand fasciculi of fibres equi- 
''^lent to muscles, in the body of a single Pen- 
facrinite — an amount of muscular apparatus con- 
^erned in regulating the ossicula of the skeleton, 
'•^finitely exceeding any that has been yet ob- 
^^^•■ved throughout the entire animat creation.* 
When we consider the profusion of care, and 
^^quisite contrivance, that pervades the frame of 
'^t'ery individual in this species of Pentacrinite, 
h>nniog but one of many members, of the almost 
Extinct family of Criuoi’deans — and when we add 
this the amount of analogous mechanisms that 
^^laracterize the other genera and species of this 
^tU’ious family, — we are almost lost in astonish- 
*^®ut, at the microscopic attention that has been 
P'tid to the welfare of creatures, holding so low 
place among the inhabitants of the ancient 
deep. I fgel a no less irresistible convic- 
tiou of the universal presence and eternal agency 
Tieclemann, in a monograph on Holothuria, Echini, and 
states that the common Star-fish has more than three 
°usand little bones. 
t A frequent repetition of the same parts is proof of the low 
P and comparative imperfection of the animal in which it 
°‘^curs. The number of bones in the human body is but two 
'indred and forty-one, and that of the muscles two hundred and 
‘irty-tvvo pairs. South’s Dissector’s Manual. 
