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some solid body. Then, by degrees, it changes its form, so that from 
a simple trochite with a cylindrical, smooth, and uniform surface, it 
becomes a tuberculous entrochite, and forms that part which is called 
the base of the encrinite, basis radiorum encrini, destined to become, 
as may be said, the stock of a numerous family : he forms five small 
polypes, which fix themselves in the five grooves on its surface. These 
five young polypes form others, and hence proceed the five branches 
form the base ; the number of these doubling by the new polypes 
which push out from these; and thus forming a body with ten, and 
indeed at the end, with twenty rays, since the number of these po- 
lypes are doubled a second time. At the sides of those rays, small 
ossiculae also attach themselves, with which are formed the fingers^ 
and in this manner that which may be called the summit of the en- 
crinus is completed. It now wants only that part which we name the 
stem of the encrinite ; this he conceives to have formed by the suc- 
cessive apposition of new polypes, the first of which attaches itself to 
the inferior part of the base, and the succeeding ones apply themselves 
in the same manner to each other. 
Such is the opinion of Mons. Hofer. He, however, modestly offers 
it merely as a conjecture, subject to numerous difficulties, and thus we 
find it. This theory is composed of too many gratuitous suppositions. 
The structure of the pelvis, &c. does not seem to be at all reconci- 
lable with the idea of the arbitrary assemblage and apposition of po- 
lypes. How is it possible that a trochite can transplant itself into 
the various parts composing the pelvis, none of which parts bear any 
resemblance to a trochite ? and, nevertheless, according to this theory, 
all these parts ought to have been formed by polypes of the same spe- 
cies. How is it possible that one polype should form a body of a tri- 
angular shape; another, of the same species, a hemispherical body; 
and another again, a body of a cylindrical form ? If every joint has 
its own separate polype, how happens it that, upon contracting at its 
death, the whole body preserves so much regularity in its form? If 
