189 
vening retained substance, the fingers are not completely closed ; but 
their points, as if to secure the seized prey, or overcome the opposing 
resistance, appear to have been forcibly contracted downwards and 
inwards. 
The knowledge of the several parts of the world in which this 
species of encrinus has existed in a mineralized state, is only to be 
attained by the discovery of the skeleton of the body part, the 
vertebrae themselves not possessing characters always sufficiently dis- 
tinguishing to determine whether they belonged to this species or not. 
There is no part of the world in which this species has been hitherto 
known decidedly to exist, but in some of the states of Germany. 
Lachmund first discovered a part of the encrinus, with its appropriate 
vertebrae, in the neighbourhood of Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony.* * * § 
Rosinus also discovered the specimens, the nature of which he so 
successfully investigated on the summits of the mountains in the 
neighbourhood of Obernscheden and Azzenhusen, not far from the 
town of Gemenden, in Lower Saxony.-^- Ritter mentions a mountain 
named Rakenberg, near Goslar,;|; in the territory of Brunswick, in 
Lower Saxony, where this fossil is found. The six-rayed encrinus, 
described by Bruckmann, is also enumerated by him among the 
subterranean treasures of this part of Saxony.§ Beuth describes 
two encrinites of this species, which were dug from a mountain at 
Scwerven, in Juliers, in Westphalia.|| 
The southern part of Lower Saxony, and the adjoining part of' 
Westphalia, appear to be almost the only parts where this fossil has 
* Oryctographise Hildesheiraensis Praefarain, P. 3. 
t Di Lithozois ac Lythophytis, P. 2. 
X Oryctographise Goslariensis, P. 20. 
§ Thesauri Subterranei Ducatus Brunsvigii, P. 65. 
II Juliae et Montium Subterranea, &c. Francisco Beuth, P. 84. 
