NO. 2225. NUCULITES FROM TEE MAINE SILURIAN— WILLIAMS. 49 



worth while to supplement the purly descriptive part of the paper 

 by a discussion of the more obscure problems of interpretation of 

 fossils, particularly of those from the Paleozoic rocks. 



I use the word interpretation purposly, because when the paleon- 

 tologist gives a zoological name to a Paleozoic fossil he is necessarily 

 interpreting the morphologic form impressed upon the rock into the 

 category of living organisms. 



Interpretation is vel^y much more and a different process than 

 description. In description we are narrating what is visible to our 

 eyes and what we see ; in interpreting we are explaining what we con- 

 ceive to be the meaning of the thing before our eyes and thus are 

 imagining what is supposed to be symbolized by the thing seen. Fos- 

 sils are, hke the cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian cylinders, 

 symbols, and their correct interpretation involves a hypothesis as 

 to the cause or causes for the particular form they assume. In both 

 cases it is of prime importance to determine with precision the exact 

 form of the symbol, but in the interpretation, the complexity and 

 difficulties are far greater for the fossils than for the cylinders. The 

 general hypothesis that the fossils were produced by h^^ng organisms 

 may be adopted with the same confidence we have that the cunei- 

 form inscriptions were WTitten by men. 



It is a simple matter also to compare a fossil shell with the shell of 

 a living organism and to interpret the various characters, such as 

 beak, hinge, clavicle, muscular impressions, etc. The real difficulty 

 comes when we attempt to give generic and specific names, and to 

 assign taxonomic values to the characters observed. These difficul- 

 ties are increased when we find, as is above stated, that the characters 

 themselves have been modified after their original formation. Not 

 only are there these difficulties in reaching a correct interpretation 

 of fossils, but the evils resulting from misinterpretation are great 

 and far-reaching. 



They become misleading in the field of zoology and evolution, as 

 well as in the field of stratigraphy and formational correlation. These 

 misinterpretations of fossils are not to be corrected by accumulation 

 of statistics, but only by a more careful attention to the processes 

 of thinking and the conceptions formed in interpreting the facts 

 observed. 



It involves the training of the imagination as well as the training 

 of the powers of observation. 



THE NUCULITES FROM THE LEIGHTON COVE SHALES. 

 (Loc. No. 5.3.8 F.) 



In order to give mathematical expression to the divergence of form 

 of specimens associated in a single faunule, I have measured all the 

 specimens (perfect enough for record) from the Leighton Cove locality, 

 3343— 19— Proc.N.M.Vol.54 5 



