404 
as in Plate VIII. Fig. 1, they are surrounded by circular, or some- 
what oval lines, which have the appearance of the section of the 
longitudinal vessels of the plant, but uncommonly large; and in 
another, they are surrounded by a ring, as at Fig. 3, which there 
seems no difficulty in considering as the tube formed by the teredo 
navalis, or some such insect. This want of uniformity, takes away 
much from the probability of their form depending on the natural 
pores of a plant. 
The opinion of their having been coralline bodies, is opposed by 
the material difference observable in their internal structure. In 
corals, indeed, there is somewhat of a stellated appearance, formed 
'by very fine lamellae passing from the centre to the circumference, 
the intervening parts bearing rather the appearance of the petals of 
a flower with the points towards the centre ; the reverse of which is 
the appearance which is yielded by these stars, the rays or points all 
tending outwards. Two very forcible objections exist against their 
being, as some have supposed, the stalks of pentacrinites, or the 
plumose encrinus ; in the first place, the stalks of the plumose en- 
crinus are so generally pentagonal, that, perhaps, not one deviation 
will be found in ten thousand of their joints ; whereas the rays of 
these stellae are so inconstant in their number, that on one specimen 
of this fossil, of the size of the palm of the hand, may be seen 
several of five, and of eight, and of every intermediate number of 
rays. In the second place, these stellated bodies are perfectly con- 
tinuous in their length, whereas the stalk of the encrinus is divided 
into joints, at less than each quarter of an inch. In opposition to 
the opinion of the surrounding ring, as well as the star, being the 
work of a zoophyte, must be placed the undoubted fact of the stel- 
lated column being sometimes found in a tube, evidently the work 
of the teredo, or some similar insect. 
From all these considerations, I am induced to conclude — ^that 
these bodies do not assume their form from any natural pores of 
