Canada 
Geological Survey 
Victoria Memorial Museum 
BULLETIN No. 1 
I. — The Trenton Crinoid , Ottawacrinus W. R. Billings. 
By F. A, Bather, D.Sc., F.R.S., British Museum 
(Nat. Hist.) 
(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
In 1887 Mr. Walter R. Billings ( Ottawa Natural. I, p. 49 and 
pi.) founded the new genus Ottawacrinus, with the single species 
0. typus, based on a unique specimen collected by him in the 
Trenton formation at Hull, Que. 
Mr. Billings considered his genus to be “most nearly related 
to Dendrocrinus.” 
In a paper on “the classification of the Inadunata Fistulata” 
(1890, “Brit. Foss. Crin.,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 6, vol. V, 
pp. 329, 332, 334, 379, 380, 383, 384) I discussed the structure 
and relations of Ottawacrinus, placing it near Merocrinu s and 
Dendrocrinus, but suggesting that it might, none the less, have 
given rise to Cyathocrinus. My remarks were based on the 
description by Mr. Billings. 
Subsequently Mr. Billings was so very kind as to entrust me 
with the unique hoiotype for study, and this raised in my mind 
some doubts, which were hinted at in “The Crinoidea of Got- 
land” (1893, Svenska Vet.-Akad . Handl. XXV, No.2. See p, 101), 
and given further expression in “A Treatise on Zoology,” Part 
III (1900, London. See pp. 112, 178). These doubts, however, 
did not affect the systematic position of the genus, which was 
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