470 BISECTIONS POE COLLECTING FOSSILS. 



a protecting case suitable for the purpose of transport. 

 Organic remains are generally in better condition, according 

 to the little that is done to them prior to their final deposit 

 in the Museum. If a fossil proves brittle to such a degree 

 that the vibrations produced by blows to its matrix cause it 

 to splinter up, the splinters, if sufficiently large, may be re- 

 adjusted ; but it is most advisable, on seeing a fossil begin 

 to splinter, to take some stiff clay, if such can be procured, 

 and press it down upon it. AVax, or similar materials, might 

 advantageously be employed for this purpose, with small 

 specimens. With regard to objects of great rarity and 

 importance, and which rest exposed in a very friable rock, it 

 it may even be desirable to prepare plaster of Paris on 

 the spot, and cover the fossil (such as the skeleton of a 

 saurian, &c.,) with a thick coating of it. By this process 

 the exposed part of a skeleton is set, as it were, in a block 

 of plaster, from which, after carefully, working beneath it 

 and the fossil in a friable rock, it may afterwards be freed, 

 or in which it may be allowed to remain, as may be desired. 

 "When the scattered, yet well-preserved fossil bones of 

 animals are found, it often happens that a large portion of 

 the entire skeleton may be eventually obtained by diligent 

 search. The accidental discovery of a small portion of bone 

 rising through the rock may lead to that of entire skeletons, 

 if sufficient care be employed. In many slaty rocks fishes, 

 plants, and other organic remains abundantly occur among 

 the laminae, pressed down to so thin a substance as not 

 readily to be seen in a cross fracture of the rock. "When, 

 therefore, such organic remains are suspected to exist in a 

 schistose rock, detached portions of it should be struck so as 

 to lay open the stones in the direction of the Iamina3. In 

 this way multitudes of fossil plants may be obtained, of which 

 there were few traces in the cross-fracture of the rock. 



8. Wherever deposits of secondary fossils are observed, it 

 is of importance to note any striking circumstances relative 

 to their mode of occurring ; the proportion, for instance, in 

 which the several species are distributed ; whether they are 

 more abundant in one bed of the rock than in another ; 

 whether they are dispersed in a confused manner through 

 the mass, or arranged parallel to the general stratification, 

 or confined to the surface of any particular stratum; or, 



