But we return; our digression makes geology lag behind. We were fortunate in procuring several fine specimens of the Crinoidean[95] or Stone-lily family, about which the reader will pardon a few details. At the stations of the Great Northern Railway, the marble mantelpieces and uprights are all made of the Derbyshire encrinital marble, and the mind is filled with singular surprise in the contemplation of these interesting relics of past creations. How multitudinous must have been this one form of life in those ancient days, and how quietly these encrinites, when their brief term of life was over, must have sunk down into the soft calcareous and argillaceous beds lying at the bottom of the old ocean waiting to receive them, only that, mummy like, it might embalm them safely, until in process of time, by upheaval, evaporation, and sun-hardening, their delicate forms should be brought out to our daylight in all the symmetry and beauty of their pre-Adamite life! But the family of Crinoideans or Stone-lilies, called the “_Pear_ encrinite,” or “_apiocrinites rotundus_,” differs very remarkably from the “_Lily_ encrinite,” or “_encrinites molliformis_;” and the following descriptions grouped from Lyell and Buckland, aided by the accompanying figures, will introduce these singular animals to our readers. “The Crinoideans or Stone-lilies are almost all confined to the limestone, but an exception occurs at Bath, where they are enveloped in clay. In this case, however, it appears that the solid upper surface of the ‘Great Oolite’ had supported for a time a thick submarine forest of these beautiful zoophytes, (_plant-animals_,) until the clear and still water was invaded by a current charged with mud,” (see diagram below, _a_,) “which threw down the stone-lilies, and broke most of their stems off near the point of attachment. The stumps still remain” (_b_) “in their original position, but the numerous articulations once composing the stem, arms, and body of the zoophyte, were scattered at random through the argillaceous deposit in which some now lie prostrate. Vast strata of entrochal[96] marble, extending over large tracts of country in Northern Europe and North America, are made up of the petrified bones of encrinites, just as a cornrick is composed of straws. Man applies it to construct his palace or to adorn his sepulchre, but there are few who know, and fewer still who duly appreciate the surprising fact, that much of this marble is composed of the skeletons of millions of organized beings, once endowed with life, and susceptible of enjoyment, which after performing the part that was for a while assigned to them in living nature, have contributed their remains towards the composition of the mountain masses of the earth.” [Illustration: _In situ._ _Restored._ PEAR ENCRINITES, OR APIOCRINITES ROTUNDUS. BRADFORD, WILTS. ]