I have also listed the recently published text books which give the most authoritative treatment of the dinosaurs, and two or three popular books dealing with fossil vertebrates.
Then, if they are to be mounted for a fossil skeleton, comes the work of restoring the missing parts.
It appears probable that in a number of cases these priceless skin impressions were mostly destroyed in removing the fossil specimens from their surroundings because the explorers were not expecting to find anything of the kind.
Only a few months previously he had discovered fossil bones in the red beds of New Mexico, the since famous Permian deposits.
Rambling through the adjacent hills in search of them, in March, 1877, he stumbled upon some fragments of fossil bones in a little ravine not far from the famous quarry later worked for Professor Marsh.
He discussed the nature of the fossil with his friend (so he told me) and finally concluded that it was a fossil bone.
The fossil layer is carefully prospected with small tools, chisels, awls and whisk brooms exposing the bones as they lie in the rocks.
The fossil trunk of a coniferous tree was found in Wyoming, which was filled with groups of wood-living shells similar to the living Teredo.
In one of these slides we found several small mammal jaws and teeth not known before from Canada, associated with fossil clam shells of Eocene age.
In England the first beetle wandered on to the stage of life--the oldest British insect fossil known.
In the Devonian formations, which contain the next oldest set of fossil insects, numbers of conifers and ferns are found.
Like a fossil in the stratum of euphuism it was soon covered up by the artificial layer of arcadianism.
George Ingram had made a thorough study of coal, or fossil fuel, its formation and value.
Half of this area was located in Jefferson, Harrison, and Belmont counties on the Ohio River, and thus title was secured to vast quantities of fossil power in the upper coal measures, which ignites quickly and burns with a hot fire.
We have therefore, so to speak, a living fossil before us, and it would be of great interest to ascertain its history.
Hilgendorf’s history of the phyletic development of the Steinheim fossil shells, having since become somewhat doubtful, one might easily be inclined to go too far in mistrusting them and refuse to give them any weight at all.
Hilgendorf again investigated the Steinheim fossil shells, and found his former statements to be completely confirmed.
It is a curious fact that, according to Olbers, "no fossil meteoric stones" have ever been discovered.
Weinhand that they had found fossil sponges, corals, and crinoids in meteoric stones!
FAIR'Y-BEADS, the separate joints of the stems of fossil crinoids found in carboniferous limestone.
See also Owen, 'British Fossil Mammals,' on the Irish elk, p.
Cyathaspis ludensis, the earliest British vertebrate fossil, was found in these rocks at Leintwardine in Shropshire, a noted fossil locality.
Author of Catalogues of Fossil Mammals, Reptiles and Birds in the British Museum; The Deer of all Lands; The Game Animals of Africa; &c.
Anciently, the substance was known as amber--a name which was subsequently applied also to the fossilgum now commonly so called.
Like the fossil gum, pieces of it were found now and then on the seashore, where they had been cast up by the waves; hence, doubtless, the giving of the same name to both.
If fossil plants and animals are available, show them to the child and tell him what you know or can find out about them.
The fossil bones of the saurians, found in northern Yorkshire, are called Fallen angels’ bones, being supposed to belong to the angels who were cast out of heaven for their rebellion.
In these rocks are many fossil remains of seeds, nuts, shells, ammonites, and one trilobite, also footprints of animals.
Slate is also found in several parts, and on the Bushman river, in which are beautiful specimens of fossil ferns.
That certain fossil transitional forms are absent, which might have been expected to be present.
Thus those remarkablefossil reptiles, the Ichthyosauria and Plesiosauria, extended, through the secondary period, probably over the greater part of the globe.
Now little less than universal and very marked inferiority in numbers would account for the absence of certain series of minutely intermediate fossil specimens.
Buckland constructed an animal from a few fossil bones, and when subsequently the bones of the entire animal were discovered, his construction was found to be correct.
So, when the geologist discovers a fossil animal with large, strong, blunt claws, he infers that it procured its food by scratching or burrowing in the earth.
The case, however, is not parallel with the fossil skeletons, many of which have no connexion with anything now existing.
The floors of limestone caverns are frequently strewn with fossil bones, which are imbedded in stalagmite, and this incrustation is still in progress of formation.
The fossilexcrement is seen not only dropped, but even in the alimentary canal.
Marcel de Serres, it appears indubitable that the existing shells of the Mediterranean are even now passing in numbers into the fossil state, and that not in quiet spots only, but where the sea is subject to violent agitations.
And still would he find, in the fossil forms, evidences of that complacency in beauty, which has prompted the Adorable Workmaster to paint the rose in blushing hues, and to weave the fine lace of the dragonfly's wing.
This contains specimens of Pecten, Cardium, and Ostrea, completely petrified, and the hardness of which is equal to that of fossil species from secondary formations.
I am endeavouring to show that a grand LAW exists, by which, in two great departments of nature at least, the analogues of the fossil skeletons were formed without pre-existence.
The whole difficulty of fossil remains is got rid of by ignoring the distinctions of species, and assuming that the ancient animals and the recent ones are identical.
It would not materially augment the force of the evidence already adduced on the question of chronology, to examine in detail the fossil remains of South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
As we have seen, fossilplants engaged Williamson's attention in his earliest years, when as a mere boy he contributed to Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora.
Witham's earlier papers were embodied in his book: The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain, described and illustrated, 1833.
During the progress of the Fossil Flora Lindley amassed a considerable collection of specimens, some of which have recently come to light in the cellars of University College.
While with Mr Weddell, Williamson contributed a number of descriptions and drawings of oolitic plants to Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora.
His latest contribution of a geological character was in 1889, when he returned to an old problem of his youth, the Silurian fossil Pachytheca.
To attempt a review of Williamson's work in fossil botany would be to write a treatise on the Carboniferous Flora.
I hope that all students of fossil botany will have at least turned over the pages and the plates of Williamson's works, for only by inspection of the original memoirs can any idea be gained of his vast services to our science.
I at once became an ardent convert to the cult of fossil plants to which I had hitherto been indifferent, though I must in fairness admit that Count Solms-Laubach's Einleitung had done something to prepare the way.
In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil remains which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more and more indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close inspection.
At present, fossil remains of men do not take us hack further than the later part of the Quaternary epoch; and, as was to be expected, they do not differ more from existing men, than Quaternary horses differ from existing horses.
Several fossil bears were long listed in scientific books; but they are all acknowledged now to be identical with the modern grizzly, and as we have already intimated all the modern ones ought to be put together.
These absurdities would all be avoided by acknowledging that the current distinctions as to the ages of the fossils are purely artificial, and that one fossil is intrinsically just as old or as young as another.
Thomas Hunt Morgan, of Columbia University, has recently said, "The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence that we have in favor of organic evolution.
Louis Agassiz did herculean work in rearranging and trimming this fossilcard index so as to make it conform better, not only to the companion card index of the modern forms of life, but also to that of the embryonic series.
These modern rationalizing methods have made but a slight impression on the vast complex of the fossil plants and animals, affecting the names of only a few of the larger and better known forms.
The silent genii of the night seemed to have repaired the fossil city for some representation of fantastic life.
Let us go to dinner--if such a thing be possible--in that picturesque hostelry, where I fear we shall be served with fossil beefsteaks and fresh eggs laid prior to the death of Pliny.
At Grand Tower they are elevated about one hundred and thirty feet above the summit level, at which elevation we observe petrifactions of madrepores and various other fossil organic remains which belong to this peculiar era.
A minutefossil shell, resembling Isocardia in form, but destitute of hinge teeth.
This genus is known only in a fossil state, and but very imperfectly.
Some of the most important of Geological data are obtained by a minute comparison of fossil shells, found in various beds, with recent ones presenting the nearest resemblance to them.
The Volvaria are only known in a fossil state, and resemble some species of Bulla in general form, but are distinguished by the plaits on the columella.
Fossil species of this marine genus are found in the Calcaire-grossier of Paris, and in other similar beds.
Fossil species are found in the tertiary deposits.
This genus, which is only known in a fossil state, is distinguished from Terebratula externally, by the flat area in one valve, internally, by the singular spiral process from which the above name is derived.
It is placed by him in the family of Pteropoda, but being a fossil shell, there is some difficulty in finding its place in the system.
The recent species belong to tropical climates: the fossil species are found in the tertiary beds.
Besides the fossil species originally described, there are now five species known, which are figured in part 200, of the Conchological Illustrations by the Author.
Recent species are brought from the East and West Indies; fossil species are found in the Tertiary beds.
Fossil species are found sparingly in the London Clay and Calcaire-grossier.
As early as 1747 he had been interested in geology and had seen specimens of the fossil remains of marine shells from the strata of the highest parts of the Alleghany Mountains.
History of Miscellaneous Bodies, which are neither entirely Fossil nor Vegetable; as Salts, Amber, Ambergris, etc.
