They may be defined as aquatic animals, forming colonies by budding; with ciliated retractile tentacles and a U-shaped alimentary canal.
The polypide consists of a "lophophore" bearing a series of ciliated tentacles by which Diatoms and other microscopic bodies are collected as food, of a U-shaped alimentary canal, and of a central nervous system.
Like the Lewis and Clark range, its crest is broken by numerous U-shaped wind-gaps and its west slope is cut by glacial troughs containing long narrow lake basins.
The U-shaped electrolytic vessel and the electrodes are made of an alloy of platinum-iridium, the limbs of the tube being closed by stoppers made of fluor-spar, and fitted with two lateral exit tubes for carrying off the gases evolved.
In New Mexico, if glaciers were formed at all in the high valleys, they were so small as not greatly to modify the more normal forms. In central Colorado and Wyoming, where the mountains are higher and the Pleistocene glaciers were larger, the valley heads were hollowed out in well-formed cirques, often holding small lakes; and the mountain valleys were enlarged into U-shaped troughs as far down as the ice reached, with hanging lateral valleys oii the way.