Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/321

 Rh in cases of accident, to which bodies so delicately constructed must have been much exposed in an element so stormy as the sea, seems to have had the power of depositing fresh matter to repair casual injuries. Mr. Miller's work abounds with examples of reparations of this kind in various fossil species of Crinoïdeans. Our Pl. 47, Fig. 2, a. represents a reparation near the upper portion of the stem of Apiocrinites Rotundus.

In the recent Pentacrinus (Pl. 52, Fig. 1,) one of the arms is under the process of being reproduced, as Crabs and Lobsters reproduce their lost claws and legs, and many lizards their tails and feet. The arms of star-fishes also, when broken oil; are in the same manner reproduced.

From these examples we see that the power of reproduction has been always strongest in the lowest orders of animals, and that the application of remedial forces has ever been duly proportioned to the liability to injury, resulting from the habits and condition of the creatures in which these forces are most powerfully developed.

As the best mode of explaining the general economy of the Crinoïdea, will be to examine in some detail the anatomy of a single species, I shall select, for this purpose, that which has formed the type- of the order, viz. the Encrinites moniliformis (sec Pl. 48, 49, 50.) Minute and full descriptions are given by Parkinson and Miller of this fossil, showing it to combine in its various organs a union of mechanical contrivances, which adapt each part to its peculiar functions in a manner infinitely surpassing the most perfect contrivances of human mechanism.

Mr. Parkinson states that after a careful examination he has ascertained that, independently of the number of pieces