CARL VON LINNE AS A GEOLOGIST NATHORST, 739 



4. " Petrifactions, perfect transsubstantiata of the interior as well 

 as the exterior shape." Such are most fossil trees, but also " En- 

 trochia and Asterice columnares " (i. e., stalked crinoids, which is 

 saying too much for them). 



* * * Of the fossils described I shall only mention one or 

 two of the Swedish ones. The Belemnites are thus characterized: 



The stone is somewhat cylindrical, but cone-shaped, and may be split length- 

 wise into two equal parts. It appears to have been bored through longitudinally 

 with a coarse groove, from which numerous stone filaments extend laterally. 

 All whole specimens have a conical depression at the root. This does not 

 appear to be true of the fllled-up petrifactions, but of the unaltered fossils, and 

 particularly to those that are most often found loose, with none of the inclosing 

 matrix. 



In the Systema Xatura? (twelfth edition) it is added that the 

 cavity at the base occasionally contains a conical nucleus [the phrag- 

 macone], divided by partitions in the same manner as the Nautilus, 

 and having at its side a siphon, a fact demonstrating that even in 

 this instance Linne attentively followed up discoveries made abroad. 



His description of the brachiopod Pentamerus conchicUuin {Helm- 

 intholithus conchidimn Z.), commonly occurring on Gotland, is also 

 of interest. He calls it the " cloven shell," and says : 



We find no more than a single shell at a time, and never a pair, as is com- 

 mon in mussels. It seems strange that when we strike it with a hammer it 

 always splits longitudinally into two equal parts. 



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Undoubtedly, however, the most interesting fossil in the Tessinian 

 collection was the complete specimen of the trilobite named by Linne 

 ^'"EntomoUthus paradoxus^'' a species to which Al. Brongniart later 

 gave the name '"''Paradoxides tessiniy Linne's Swedish name for it 

 was " understone " or " wormstone of water fleas," and his descrip- 

 tion of it is as follows: 



In this collection there is a species of stone from the alum pit at Dimbo 

 in Westrogothia the like of which scarcely exists in the world. It is a pure 

 black slate stone, as large as the whole of this (folio) page, most plainly 

 engraved. The body is oval, anteriorly blunt and laterally divided by more 

 than 20 folds, with as many pairs of feet at the sides, of which the hindfeet 

 are the longest. In general form this worm seems to resemble most closely 

 the species named "Monoculus,'' although of a kind quite unknown to us. 

 * * * No stone nowadays keeps the naturalist more busy than this one, 

 which is daily being collected and examined, particularly by the English, so 

 that the diligent researches of several men may some day result in ascertaining 

 its orgiu. 



* * * The figure given by Linne was rather coarsely executed 

 (" figura nimis rudis," Dalman says), wherefore it has caused later 

 investigators some trouble. Linne says that the reproduction is 

 almost of natural size, while, to be more exact, the size of the figure 



