62 I 



i 



thanks to the printing press and popular lectures these persons are j 



now scarce in this country at least. ' 



But we must consider fossils now as literally anything dug 

 out of the earth ; hence the earlier geologists spoke of native fos- 

 sils or minerals, and extraneous fossils on the bodies of plants and j 

 animals accidently burried in the earth. ; 

 But, as I bave said, the word fossil is now used to indicate ' 

 not only the remains of animals, vegetables and protista but their i 

 casts and everything dug out of the earth except the Instruments, ! 

 as arrow heads and the like, which man bave made or could bave j 

 made. In this category the word fossil will be applied bere. We 

 bave fossil animals, fossil plants and fossil protista. In which ialter j 



section the Bacillaria, fossil Bacillaria, the diatoms of the former stu- l 



I 



dents and those who are not students but bave had applied to i 



them name Diatomaniacs. i 



Meaning that they, the fossil Bacillaria are the shells or loricae ; 



of living Bacillaria. Not turned to stone, as silica or calcium car- ' 



bonate or calcium phosphate as are the fossils shells of molluscs i 



and skeletons of animals. Fossils of plants may be turned to stone, ' 



as silica, or turned to coal or other carboniferous substances, as i 



they are in coal or even peat. [ 



So some fossils are plants animals petrified, i. e. turned to \ 



stone, whilst others are not so petritied. They bave merely part of | 



their constituents removed and some left. | 



The Staked Plain has been placed in various geological periods , 



from the cretaceous to the present and stili the geology is not thor- ; 



ougbly understood. \ 



But this is the case even in New Jersey near New York, some j 



placing rocks in the Juro-Triassic, some in the Triassic and some in . 



the Permian. The latest publication on the geology of the Lano Està- i 



cado is that of 1891 by W. F. Cummins, and it shows what is known { 



now. The upper part of the plain, for it is a plain, fiat and level, ' 



belongs to the later tertiary overlaid by recent clays and soiis, But ' 



the cretaceous and triassic form a part, which accounts for its j 



being placed in those periods. Upon these rocks is the Bacillarian, \ 



called the Diatomaceous, strata which bave not been placed at ali 



for they bave not as yet been studied by geologist simply by two j 



