Defrance's Tableau des Corps Organises Fossiles. 249 



Tableau des Corps Organises Fossiles Sfc. A Table of Fossil 

 Organic Bodies, preceded by Remarks on their Petrifaction. 

 By M. Defrance. Paris, 1824. 8vo. pp. xvi <^ 136. 



The splendid collection of fossils possessed by M. Defrance, 

 has long been acknowledged to be unrivalled in richness and ex- 

 tent, and hopes have been repeatedly expressed that the vast 

 body of information contained in its ample stores would be laid 

 before the scientific world by its liberal owner. Though repeated- 

 ly urged, however, by his friends, to publish a scientific catalogue 

 of the numerous organic remains which it embraces, no attempt of 

 this nature has been made, until the appearance of the present 

 brochure J which we are desirous of hailing as the forerunner of a 

 more important work, (although no such hint is contained in it,) 

 to which it would form an excellent introduction. The "Remarks 

 on Petrifaction " consist of a series of geological axioms, develop- 

 ing numerous novel and important facts, many of which will be 

 found extremely interestiag to the geologist. Among the.ie may 

 be mentioned the curious circumstance that the shells of certain 

 families of Mollusca^the OstracecB for instance, never disappear in 

 a fossil state, while those of others, as the Folutce, Cyprcece, &c. 

 are scarcely ever to be met with, casts or moulds of these alone 

 being in general found. A striking distinction would thus seem 

 to be drawn between the loose and foliated texture of the former 

 and the more compact one of the latter, which is singularly sup- 

 ported by what takes place with respect to fossil shells of the 

 genus U/pponyx. When these are fossilized in those strata in 

 which the shelly matter generally disappears, their upper or patel- 

 liform part is always lost, nothing remaining but its mould, while 

 their support, the structure of which is foliated, remains un- 

 touched, except in the point of attachment of the adductor mus- 

 cle, which being equally compact with the upper portion of ihe 

 shell, disappears in a similar manner. 



The " Table" which occupies twenty eight pages, is so ar- 

 ranged as to present at one view the whole of the genera of Inver- 

 tt'brated Animals possessing or secrtting calcareous matter; distin- 

 guishing those the Fpecies of which are found only in the living 



