RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. 267 



iiection as illustrating more than one of the facts thai have been stated 

 in the foregoing paragraphs. While excavating the buried eity the 

 workmen came upon molds of the bodies of persons who were suffo- 

 cated by, and buried beneath, the shower of ashes from Vesuvius. 

 The body, even including the bones, long ago decomposed and was 

 removed by the percolation of water which fell from the clouds. Casts 

 of these molds, when discovered, were made by pouring them full of 

 plaster, and when the comparatively soft inclosing matrix was removed 

 au exact counterpart of the body was disclosed just as it fell in death 

 well nigh two thousand years ago. 



