A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains, consisting of coloured illustrations selected from Parkinson's "Organic remains of a former world," and Artis's "Antediluvian phytology."Mantell, Gideon Algernon
Science
A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains, consisting of coloured illustrations selected from Parkinson's "Organic remains of a former world," and Artis's "Antediluvian phytology."
Mantell, Gideon Algernon
Paleontology
Fig. 2. Cast of part of a straight-chambered shell (_Baculites
Fraujasii_, of Lamarck), in which the septa, or partitions,
are deeply and regularly sinuated. In fossils of this kind,
the cast of each chamber is distinct from the others; but
the series is held together by the flexuosities of the
septa. From Maestricht.
Fig. 3. A limestone cast of the chamber of an Ammonite: from
Bath. The elongated channel in the middle indicates the
position of the siphuncle.
Fig. 4. Fragment of an Ammonite, showing cavities of two
chambers, and the canal of the siphuncle, partly lined with
calcareous spar.
Fig. 5. Polished sections of an Ammonite (_Ammonites Walcotii_)
from the Lias, Whitby. The chambers are filled with
semi-transparent spar. The siphunculus is seen running along
the dorsal, or outer margins of the volutions. The dark
appearances observable in several parts of the siphuncle
result from the carbonization of the animal membrane with
which the tube was lined in the living state.
Fig. 6. "An _Oval Ammonite_."--_Mr. Parkinson._ This is evidently
the cast of a discoidal shell pressed into an elliptical
form. In the Chalk-marl, casts of Ammonites, Nautilites, &c.
are very commonly more or less distorted by compression. The
marl appears to have remained in a plastic state after the
decomposition of the shell in which it was moulded, and to
have admitted of being squeezed into close contact with the
surrounding matrix; when the stratum became consolidated
the cast retained its accidental shape, and adhering but
slightly to the investing marl, was separable by a properly
directed blow. This explains the otherwise unintelligible
fact of a cast being closely invested by the rock, and all
traces of the shell in which it was formed absent. When both
the cast and the matrix became solid and uncompressible
before the shell was decomposed, then loose casts were
formed; as is common in the Portland stone, &c. The fossil
figured appears to be an indifferent example of a common
chalk-marl species (_Ammonites Mantelli_, of Sowerby).
Fig. 7. A beautiful cast of an Ammonite, in which the foliaceous
septa transmuted into pyrites (sulphuret of iron, or
_marcasite_), are exquisitely shown.
Fig. 8. A very fine specimen of an Ammonite (_Ammonites latus_,
of Sowerby), from the "_Galt_;" a subdivision of the
Lower chalk, in which Ammonites, with their pearly shells
beautifully preserved, are abundant. From Folkstone, in
Kent; a celebrated locality for these and other fossils of
the same cretaceous deposits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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