358 THE MEDALS OF CREATION. Cuap. X: 
_ the state of molluskite.* In short, that the animal had 
become immersed and preserved in the fluid silex like the 
Bren. 117. RoTALIA IN FLINT, WITH THE FOSSILIZED BODY OF THE ANIMAL 
IN THE SHELL: highly magnified. 
(Seen by transmitted light.) 
insects in amber. The appearance of the first discovered 
example of this kind is represented in Lign. 117. 
In a paper read before the Geological Society in 1845, 
I ventured to affirm the animal nature of the fossils in 
question; but the supposition was regarded by geologists as 
very startling and unsatisfactory ; and as the specimens 
were enveloped in flint, the appearance was attributed to 
the infiltration of mineral matter of a different colour from 
the surrounding silex, into the empty chambers ; a circum- 
* Molluskite: a name by which I proposed to distinguish. the 
carbonaceous substance resulting from the soft bodies of testaceous 
mollusca. 
++ Notes of a Microscopical Examination of the Chalk and Flint of 
the South-East of England, with Remarks on the Animaleulites of 
certain Tertiary and Modern Deposits. Published in the Ann. Nat. 
Hist., Aug. 1845. 
