14 PALEONTOLOGY OF KENTUCKY. 



verted is called adipocere. It was first discovered by the French scientist 

 Fourcroy, in the year 1787, during the removal of the cemetery of the Inno- 

 cents, in Paris. 



USE OF FOSSILS. 



Collectors of geological and palaxmtological specimens are often objects of 

 wonder and curiosity to people who notice them closely examining rock-piles 

 and clay-banks. What are those fellows doing there ? What are they hunt- 

 ing for? These questions are asked, without exception, by almost every 

 person passing by, and if the men of science show the things they are looking 

 for, and explain their origin and meaning, they may consider themselves very 

 fortunate if, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, they are not looked upon as 

 fit recruits for a lunatic asylum. The ignorance prevailing among the mass of 

 the people, about objects of natural, science, and especially of geology and 

 palaeontology, is appalling. Such ignorance might be excused among the lower 

 classes, who had neither time nor opportunity to acquire knowledge, but to 

 find it, even at the end of the nineteenth century, among the majority of 

 persons who lay claim to a fair and liberal education, is very humiliating, and 

 proves the inefficiency of our schools, at least in that direction. 



Fossils are picked up, by people in general and by curiosity hunters in 

 particular, because they look so "pretty" or so "strange," as the expression 

 may be; but that these pretty and strange-looking things are of the greatest 

 importance to science, and of immense service to industry, is, so far, known 

 only to very few, outside of the scientific world. Fossils are the letters with 

 which Nature has written the earth's history, in a language intelligible to 

 every student of natural science, whatever nationality he may claim. They 

 faithfully report to us the different processes and changes through which our 

 globe has passed * from its beginning as a solid body to the present day. In 

 them, the animal and vegetable kingdoms of by-gone ages arise from their 

 tombs, and present themselves to the investigation of science. They furnish 

 the indisputable proof that the organized world commenced with its lowest 

 forms, and developed gradually into its higher types. Mantell, an English 

 geologist, says of them: "Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately 

 termed medals of creation, for, as an accomplished numismatist, even when 

 the inscription of an ancient and unknown coin is illegible, can, from the half 

 obliterated effigy and from the style of art, determine with precision, the 

 people by whom, and the period when it was struck ; so, in like manner, the 

 geologist can decipher these natural memorials, interpret the hieroglyphics 

 with which they are inscribed, and, from apparently most insignificant relics, 

 trace the history of beings, of whom no other records are extant, and ascer- 

 tain the forms and habits of unknown types of organization, whose races were 



