2 Emoin Hinckley Barbour 



gantic Fossils. The fact that the specimens were collected, 

 cleaned, and figured, and that the paper was begun and com- 

 pleted between May 1st and the middle of June, and that too 

 amidst the distractions of class work and examination, is an 

 all sufficient excuse for any lack of detailed study, or examina- 

 tion into the minute structure of the fossil. 



Again, on June 20, 1892, the author visited the same region, 

 taking charge of the Morrill Geological Expedition, which ex- 

 plored and collected in these interesting beds for several weeks, 

 covering in that time several hundred square miles of territory, 

 and obtaining some of the best specimens that can ever be 

 found. 



Although the region has not been visited by parties from the 

 University since that date, yet the material secured then, and 

 on the former expeditions, has been worked over, and it is be- 

 lieved that additional facts of consequence to those interested 

 have been found. The present paper will attempt to show the 

 progress that has been made rather than to undertake to show 

 what these peculiar fossils are. They are as anomalous now 

 as when first discovered, and no one dares to make positive 

 statements as to their true nature. These twisted old para- 

 doxes must have lived, if they lived at all, in water too bur- 

 dened with sediment to admit of life. If animals, they were 

 also plants. If "accidents," they chanced to happen accord- 

 ing to perfectly definite and fixed laws. Such accidents should 

 be immortalized. Whether they were the product of chance, 

 or only mechanically formed burrows, matters not so long as 

 every microscopic section, without exception, shows perfectly 

 definite and unmistakable plant structure. Its cellular struc- 

 ture is not offered as proof, but as evidence of its direct or re- 

 mote relation to plants. The fossil, strange as it may seem, 

 stands undetermined. It has been visited and examined by 

 some of the best Botanists, Geologists, and Paleontologists, 

 and yet none can pass judgment upon it. The author still 

 counts them anomalous, and entirely unique. 



