According to others, petrifactions originated from the influence of the stars upon the interior of the earth.
It took a very long time before the simple and natural view was accepted, namely, that petrifactions are in reality nothing but what they appear to simple observation--the indestructible remains of extinct organisms.
The whole of the petrifactions accurately known do not probably amount to a hundredth part of those which, by more elaborate explorations, are yet to be discovered.
The most ancient of all distinctly preserved petrifactions is the Eozoon Canadense, which was found in the lowest Laurentian strata in the Ottawa formation.
And when those petrifactions were repeated in modern quarries, it was merely the shell they gave; the spirit within had not yet broken through.
As regarded the uses of life, it still slept in petrifactions of Pentelic marble.
He offered to send to the university of Jena a collection of these petrifactions which are found near Zanesville, in this state, and for which he desired to obtain some German minerals.
Mr. Atwater likewise possesses a very handsome collection of minerals, among which I found some interesting petrifactions of wood and plants, in particular, the whortleberry plant.
A great many petrifactions and impressions of plants are found here, some of which I had seen at Mr. Atwater's, in Circleville.
The rocks contain handsome petrifactions of shells, plants, and animals; and we saw one specimen a foot and a half long, which resembled a young alligator; of the smaller ones we took several specimens.
These facts must be interesting to geologists, since attention has been fixed on the fresh-water formations, and the curious mixture of marine and fluviatile petrifactions sometimes observed in certain very recent rocks.
I saw no petrifactions in it; but the inhabitants assert that considerable masses of shells are found at great heights.
The breccia contain fragments of the same basalts which they cover; and it is asserted that marine petrifactions are observed in them.
Marcel de Serres shews, that marine petrifactions are not necessarily of ancient date, for they are formed at the present day in existing seas; that shells are now being petrified in the Mediterranean.
These petrifactions are not, as some suppose, to be regarded as fossils, the latter designation belonging only to 'those organic remains which are found in geological deposits.
Fracaster wrote on the petrifactions of Verona; Scilla, a Sicilian, on marine bodies turned into stone, illustrating his work by engravings.
Verona, Fracaster wrote on thepetrifactions found at, ii.
And especially when it was found that most of the petrifactions in the rocks were of marine origin, not only were they supposed to be the result of the deluge, but a most conclusive proof of that event.
The advocates of the diluvial origin of petrifactions soon found themselves hard pressed with the question, how these relics could be scattered through strata many thousand feet thick, by one transient flood.
These petrifactionsare generally found in low grounds, but I saw several also on the top of the low hills of gravel and sand over which the road lies.
The banks of the rivulet are overgrown with willows, Defle, and tamarisks (Arabic), and I saw largepetrifactions of shells in the valley.
I have crossed this desert repeatedly in other directions, and never saw any of the petrifactions except in this part of it.
These were preserved in the mud, which condensed them into neptunic rock, and as petrifactions they now serve to characterise the respective strata.
We cannot therefore be astonished that by far the majority of petrifactions belong to organisms which have lived in the sea, and that of the inhabitants of the land proportionately only very few are preserved in a fossil state.
We learn from the science of petrifactions much more than we do in the case of Mosses of the importance which the second branch of Prothallus plants--that is, Ferns--have had in the history of the vegetable world.
Consequently all the petrifactions found in the neptunic stratifications of the earth's crust comprise altogether but a very few forms, and of these for the most part only isolated fragments.
As a rule we find petrifactions or fossils enclosed only in those stones which have been deposited in layers as mud by water, and which are on that account called neptunic, stratified, or sedimentary rocks.
Hence it is necessary critically to examine these records, and to determine the value which petrifactionspossess for the history of the development of organic tribes.
But nevertheless, the petrifactionsactually discovered are of the greatest value.
No petrifactions could inform us of the fundamental and important fact which ontogeny reveals to us, that the most ancient common ancestors of all the different animal and vegetable species were quite simple cells like the egg-cell.
The obvious records of creation which lie buried in petrifactions are imperfect beyond all measure.
We have now, by the favour of this gentleman, obtained specimens of the petrifactions of Giezer; and, what is still more interesting, we have procured some of the water of those petrifying boiling springs.
To this subject of the petrifactions of Giezier, I may now add the information which we have received in consequence of a new voyage from this country to Iceland.
It is sufficient here to observe, that our author finds occasion to generalise the formation of those petrifactions with the flintifications in calcareous and gypseous bodies.
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.
The rocks at the Grand Tower are limestone of secondary formation--the stratum being several hundred feet in depth, and imbedding hornstone and marine petrifactions throughout.
It was not until August 7th, that he arrived at Tabor, Iowa.
John Brown was not a weakling, nor was he wasting any of his time trifling with sentiment when he wrote this letter.
If on the application of acid there had been no effervescence, the inference would be that the specimen was not limestone, the material of whichpetrifactions are usually composed.
A fish nearly a foot long, petrified to solid stone" has lately been cited in your columns as another instance of the petrifactions of the Onondaga Valley.
In this country there is one man with a heart so thoroughly bad that it reminds us of those unaccountable petrifactions often mentioned in natural history," etc.
The petrifactions of a plodding brain, That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back again.
The products of these petrifactions in time strewed the surface of the ground with such an abundance of specimens as to give the locality its present name.
The forest petrifactions present one of the most interesting scientific problems in the Park.
Mr. Esper says, those fire-stones only which contain fossils or petrifactions are called flins, flint; and it is possible that the singular formation may be the cause why they have retained longest the name of the pagan deity.
A naturalist of modern times, who referspetrifactions to Noah’s flood, believed that he could smell sea-water in them after the lapse of so many thousand years.
Petrifactions of animals and plants are to be looked for only on the banks of the rivers, though they doubtless are as frequent in the chains of hills, where they are concealed by the greensward from the eye of the passing observer.
The rapidity with which the petrifactions must have taken place--a point well illustrated in Hayden's Geological Essays--seems to require some new notions on the subject.
These petrifactions are those of masses of forest debris which were lying as they dropped from the trees, or had drifted together as such fragments do.
Palaeozoic Lycopods and Equisetaceae reached the dimensions of great trees, but hitherto no treelike form of Sphenophyllum has been discovered, and in the structure-petrifactions the largest stems we know were less than an inch in diameter.
Fujii in Japan does contain some true petrifactions of Angiosperms and other plant debris.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "petrifactions" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
