Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/325

 Rh and fingers (see Pl. 47, figs. 1, 2, 3. and Pl. 50, figs. 1, 2, 3.,) the surface of each bone articulates with that adjacent to it, with the most perfect regularity and nicety of adjustment. So exact, and methodical is this arrangement, even to the extremity of its minutest tentacula, that it is just as improbable, that the metals which compose the wheels of a chronometer should for themselves have calculated and arranged the form and number of the teeth of each respective wheel, and that these wheels should have placed themselves in the precise position, fitted to attain the end resulting from the combined action of them all, as for the successive hundreds and thousands of little bones that compose an Encrinite, to have arranged themselves, in a position subordinate to the end produced by the combined effect of their united Mechanism; each acting its peculiar part in harmonious subordination to the rest, and all conjointly producing a result which no single series of them acting separately, could possibly have effected.

In Pl. 50 I have selected from Goldfuss, Parkinson, and Miller, details of the structure of the body and upper extremities of Encrinites Moniliformis, or Lily Encrinite, in which the component parts are indicated by letters, explained in the annexed note; and I must refer my readers to these authors for minute descriptions of the individual forms and uses of each successive series of plates.