hunter's published paper on fossils. 289 



fossilized, nearly in proportion to the quantity of animal matter they 

 contain. 



" The mode by which I judge of this, is by the quantity of effer- 

 vescence ; when fossil bones are put into the muriatic acid it is not 

 nearly so great as when a shell is put into it, but it is more in some, 

 although not in all, than when a recent bone is treated in this way, and 

 this I think diminishes in proportion to the quantity of animal substance 

 they retain ; as a proof of this, those fossil bones which contain a 

 small portion of animal matter, produce in an acid the greatest effer- 

 vescence when the surface is acted on, and very little when the centre 

 is affected by it; however, this may be accounted for by the parts 

 which have lost their phosphoric acid, and acquired the aerial [carbonic 

 acid], being easiest of solution in the marine acid, and therefore dissolved 

 first, and the aerial acid let loose. 



" In some bones of the whale the effervescence is very great ; in the 

 Dalmatia and Gibraltar bones it is less ; and in those the subject of 

 the present paper it is very little, since they contain by much the 

 largest proportion of animal substance 1 ." 



The results of these varied chemical experiments would have afforded 

 the most convincing answer to the objections so rife, in the century 

 or two which preceded Hunter, to any scientific deductions from fossil 

 remains, because, as it was contended, they were mere sportive evidences 

 of the plastic force of nature, — an idea entertained by the great ana- 

 tomist Fallopius, amongst others, who maintained that certain tusks of 

 elephants dug up in his time, in Apulia, were mere earthy concre- 

 tions. Had he known that those tusks contained a quantity of the 

 very gelatinous substance which formed the basis of the human skeleton, 

 and that the earthy matter of the supposed concretion was the same 

 peculiar combination of hme with phosphoric acid which hardens the 

 human bones and teeth, the learned Professor of Padua would doubtless 

 have been led to reconsider his assent to the current delusion of his 

 day, as to the nature of the fossils submitted to him. 



The observations on the chemical conditions of fossil bones, form, 

 however, but a small part of Hunter's paper published in the ' Philoso- 

 phical Transactions.' 



He compares the fossils which are the subject of his text with the 

 osteology of recent animals ; determines their generic affinity to the 

 bear ; and shows not only that they differ from any of the species with 

 which he was able to compare them, but also that the fossils differed 

 from each other. For reasons which Hunter assigns, from having 



1 [Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxxiv. 1794.] 



u 



