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Their substance is formed of the shells of the common oyster in bluish gray and black particles on a white ground, as in the Lumachella d' Egitto; of the cardium or cockle, assuming a lighter or deeper shade of yellow, as in the Lumachella d' Astracane; of the ammonite, as in the L. Corno d' Ammone; of the Anomia ampulla in the L. occhio di Pavone, so called from the circular form of the fossils whichever way the section is made; of encrinites, belemnites, and starfish, showing white or red on a violet ground, as in the L. pavonazza; and "of broken shells, hardly discernible, together with very shining and saccharoid particles of carbonate of lime," as in the Marmor Schiston of the ancients the brocatello antico of the Italians, so named from its various shades of yellow and purple, resembling silk brocade.
Section at Bradford of Great Oolite and overlying clay, containing the fossil encrinites. Three perfect individuals of Apiocrinites, represented as they grew on the surface of the Great Oolite. d. Body of the Apiocrinites rotundus. Apiocrinus. a. Single plate of body of Apiocrinus, overgrown with serpulae and bryozoa. Natural size. Bradford Clay. b.
It usually comprises two very distinct members: first, the sedimentary beds, usually called the Coal-measures, of mixed fresh-water, terrestrial, and marine origin, often including seams of coal; secondly, that named in England the Mountain or Carboniferous Limestone, of purely marine origin, and made up chiefly of corals, shells, and encrinites, and resting on shales called the shales of the Mountain Limestone.
We can therefore safely come to the conclusion that the large masses of encrinital limestone, which attain such an enormous thickness in some places, especially in Ireland, have been formed far away from the land of the period; we can at the same time draw the conclusion that if we find the encrinites broken and snapped asunder, and the limestone deposits becoming impure through being mingled with a proportion of clayey or sandy deposits, that we are approaching a coast-line where perhaps a river opened out, and where it destroyed the growth of encrinites, mixing with their dead remains the sedimentary dêbris of the land.
In carboniferous times there lived numberless creatures which we know nowadays as encrinites. These, when growing, were fixed to the bed of the ocean, and extended upward in the shape of pliant stems composed of limestone joints or plates; the stem of each encrinite then expanded at the top in the shape of a gorgeous and graceful starfish, possessed of numberless and lengthy arms.
James Hall, Palaeontologist of New York, to the fact that these Palaeozoic rocks of the Appalachian chain, which are of such enormous density, where they are almost entirely of mechanical origin, thin out gradually as they are traced to the westward, where evidently the contemporaneous seas allowed organic rocks to be formed by corals, echinoderms, and encrinites in clearer water, and where, although the same successive periods are represented, the total mass of strata from the Silurian to the Carboniferous, instead of being 40,000 is only 4000 feet thick.
The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, Give it a place among thy treasured spoils Fossil and relic, corals, encrinites, The fly in amber and the fish in stone, The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring, Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard!
Millstone grit: a coarse quartzose sandstone passing into a conglomerate, sometimes used for millstones, with beds of shale; usually devoid of coal; occasionally above 600 feet thick. Mountain or Carboniferous Limestone: a calcareous rock containing marine shells, corals, and encrinites; devoid of coal; thickness variable, sometimes more than 1500 feet.
After all, some of these stalked star- fish are so like flowers, lilies especially, that they are called Encrinites; and the whole family is called Crinoids, or lily-like creatures, from the Greek work krinon, a lily; and as for corals and corallines, learned men, in spite of all their care and shrewdness, made mistake after mistake about them, which they had to correct again and again, till now, I trust, they have got at something very like the truth.
The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, Give it a place among thy treasured spoils Fossil and relic, corals, encrinites, The fly in amber and the fish in stone, The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring, Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard!
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