44 



There is a popular fallacy that the human body sometimes turns to stone 

 after burial, and this error is owing to the fact that the fat and muscular 

 tissues change after death to a waxlike substance called adipocere, which 

 being tolerably firm, often preserves the form and features of the body 

 in a more or less perfect condition for a few years after death, but this 

 only retards, not prevents, the final and complete decomposition of 

 the soft parts. 



Moulds or casts may be either of the interior or of the exterior of 

 the shell of the mollusc, the cup of a coral or crinoid, or the skeleton of 

 any organism possessing such. 



Taking as an example the shell of a mollusc which, after being 

 filled with mud and buried in the ocean bed, was subjected to influence 

 which dissolved out the shell — an interior and exterior cast, with an 

 empty space between, would be the result. However, it is very rarely 

 that a cavity is lef r, as in any porous matrix mineral particles would 

 be deposited until a filling is formed. A familiar instance of a cavity 

 or mould is that of a citizen of Pompeii found during the excavation of 

 the streets of that city. The man had probably been suffocated in the 

 showers of ashes from Vesuvius. A plaster cast was made of the cavity, 

 and the form of the Pompeiian restored to human gaze after a lapse of 

 1,800 years. 



Through careful oberservation of readily accessible rock masses in 

 various countries as to their super-position, mineral characters, and 

 included fossils, geologists have been enabled to break up the entire 

 stratified series into a number of different divisions or formations, each 

 characterized by general uniformity of mineral composition, by peculiarity 

 of position with regard to the others and by a peculiar assemblage of 

 fossils ; and further, to break up each of the primary divisions into a 

 series of smaller ones similarly characterized and distinguished. In no 

 known locality can all these rock groups be seen surmounting one 

 another in uninterrupted succession. There are localities where repre- 

 sentatives of the Cambrian, Silurian, Old Red and Carboniferous are to 

 be found following one another in regular succession. But, on the 

 other hand, there are localities where the Carboniferous rests on the 

 Silurian and the Old Red is absent, and this may have been owing 

 either to the elevation of the Silurian beds above the sea immediately 



