These Crinoids were fixed to the bottom of the sea, preferring a depth of about 150 fathoms. They were attached permanently, or temporarily, mouth upward, with a jointed stalk. At the top of the stem there was a muscular body that had both motor and sensory qualities. It lived upon minute protozoa and other animalcules, which it absorbed from the sea water.
When the sea receded from the North American continent these Crinoids were preserved by nature’s chemistry. They were fossilized into the Boone Limestone. These fossils are found in abundance in the Ozarks, especially at Eureka Springs, and in Benton county near Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. Some of the stems held together and appear as screw-like formations in the rock. Sometimes they were broken up and the discs or segments of the stem are scattered through the rock strata. Two hundred seventy-five million years of the earth’s past lie buried in this Ozark limestone.
I sometimes take tourists on hikes at Eureka Springs and one of my favorite trails is over East Mountain that rises abruptly from the valley floor of this famous stairstep town. Near Onyx Spring I point out the Crinoids in the rock strata which give mute evidence that this region was once the bottom of the sea. Some of these sea lily fossils are almost perfect, others are broken into fragments.
One need not be a geologist, or even a student of geology, to observe and enjoy the rock formation of the Ozarks. The region is an open book and even he who runs may read and enjoy it.
There are stories in the stones at Eureka Springs. Tourists who visit Cork, Ireland usually go out to the village of Blarney, four miles distant, and take a look at the medieval castle built by Cormac McCarthy in 1449. On the summit of the castle tower is the famous Blarney Stone which has been kissed by thousands of people from all parts of the world. It is an age-old superstition that to kiss this stone endows one with the gift of coaxing, wheedling, flattery and blarney. Eureka Springs does not have a “Wheedling Stone,” but it does have the Sliding Rocks at Little Eureka Spring which tradition has marked with special purpose. The name, Sliding Rocks, has a double meaning. In the first place, two large flat rocks, each about twenty feet in diameter, stand tilted against the mountain side at an angle of forty-five degrees. They slid down the mountain, ages ago perhaps, to their present location. That was long before the white man came to drink the “Wonder Water” from the near-by spring. An oak tree a foot in diameter now stands in the path which the rocks took in making the descent to their present position. Putting the rocks in this position was the work of Nature; to wrap them in a halo of tradition called for the ingenuity of man.