382 Say on Shells, ^c. 



The greater portion of them are extracted, with some modi- 

 fication, from an essay which I read about three years ago, to 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences, without any intention at the 

 time of giving pubhcity to them. But the rapid diffusion of a 

 taste for geological research, seems to require corresponding 

 exertions on the part of those who have attended to fossil re- 

 mains, inasmuch as geology, in order to be eminently fur- 

 nished with every advantage that may tend to the develope- 

 ment of many important results, must be in part founded on a 

 knowledge of the different genera and species of reliquiae, 

 which the various accessible strata of the earth present. The 

 accessory value of this species of knowledge, is now duly esti- 

 mated in Europe, as affording the most obvious means of esti- 

 mating, with the greatest approximation to truth, the compara- 

 tive antiquity of formations, and of strata, as well as of identi- 

 fying those with each other which are in their nature similar. 



Certainly very little is yet known about the fossils of North 

 America, and very little can be known accurately, until we 

 shall have it in our power to compare them with -approved 

 detailed descriptions, plates, or specimens of those of Europe ; 

 which have been made known to the world by the indefatiga- 

 ble industry, and scientific research of Lamarck and other 

 naturalists. 



America is rich in fossils. In many districts of the United 

 States, vast beds of fossil shells, zoophytes, &c. are deposited, 

 which, for the most part, are concealed from the inquiring eye, 

 offering superficially a mere confused mass of mutilated frag- 

 ments. These rich repositories must finally be exposed to 

 view, by the onward pace of improvement, and the more inte- 

 rior strata will be unveiled by some fortunate profound exca- 

 vations, the result of enterprise in the pursuit of gain. The 

 very surface of the country in many regions, is almost over- 

 spread with the abundance of casts, or redintigrate fossils, many 

 of which are apparently specifically anomalous, and some ge- 

 nerically so. The correct, and only useful mode in which the 

 investigation of our fossils can be conducted, is attended with 

 some difficulty and labour. 



