FOSSIL INK-BAGS. 231 



blished beyond the possibility of doubt, by the recent disco- 

 very of numerous specimens in the Lias of Lyme Regis,* in 

 which the ink-bags are preserved in a fossil state, still dis- 

 tended, as when they formed parts of the organization of 

 living bodies, and retaining the same juxta-position to an 

 internal rudimentary shell resembling a horny pen, which 

 the ink-bag of the existing Loligo bears to the pen within 

 the body of that animal. (PI. 28, Fig. 1.) 



Having before us the fact of the preservation of this fossil 

 ink, we find a ready explanation of it, in the indestructible 

 nature of the carbon of which it was chiefly composed. 

 Cuvier describes the ink of the recent Cuttle Fish, as being 

 a dense fluid of the consistence of pap, " bouillie," suspended 

 in the cells of a thin net-work that pervades the interior of 

 the ink-bag ; it very much resembles common printers' ink. 

 A substance of this nature would readily be transferred to a 

 fossil state, without much diminution of its bulk.f 



PI. 28, Fig. 5, represents an ink-bag of a recent Cuttle 

 Fish, in which the ink is preserved in a desiccated state, 

 being not much diminished from its original volume. Its 

 form is similar to that of many fossil ink-bags (PI. 29, Figs. 

 3 — 10,) and the indurated ink within it differs only from the 



* We owe this discovery to the industry and skill of Miss Mary Anning-, 

 to whom the scientific world is largely indebted, for having brought to 

 light so many interesting remains of fossil Reptiles from the Lias at Lyme 

 Regis. 



t So completely are the character and qualities of the ink retained in its 

 fossil state, that when, in 1826, I submitted a portion of it to my friend Sir 

 Francis Chantrcy, requesting him to try its power as a pigment, and he had 

 prepared a drawing with a triturated portion of this fossil substance; the 

 drawing was shown to a celebrated painter, without any information as to 

 its origin, and he immediately pronounced it to be tinted with sepia of excel- 

 lent quality, and begged to be informed by what colourman it was prepared. 

 The common sepia used in drawing is from the ink-bag of an oriental 

 species of cuttle-fish. The ink of the cuttle-fishes, in its natural state, is 

 said to be soluble only in water, through which it diflTuses itself instanta. 

 neously ; being thus remarkably adapted to its peculiar service in the only 

 fluid wherein it is naturally employed. 



