FOSSIL INVERTEBRATES AND PLANTS 97 



solidly between it and the specimens. When a specimen has been 

 collected in several blocks, pack in as few boxes as possible. 

 Each box should be numbered, and under that number there 

 should be a complete inventory of its contents. When a skeleton 

 has been packed in several boxes, cross references to that fact 

 should be entered in your notes. In shipping the prepared 

 fossils, especially in the United States, they should be billed 

 as "fossils in rock" as a special freight rate applies to this 

 category of materials. 



FOSSIL INVERTEBRATES AND PLANTS 



Invertebrate fossils include remains of such ancient animals 

 as protozoa, sponges, corals, echinoderms (starfishes, crinoids, 

 sea urchins), worms, bryozoa, brachiopods, mollusks (clams, 

 snails, cephalopods) and arthropods (ostracods, insects, crabs, 

 trilobites). Fossilized remains of plants also often occur in rock 

 formations. These two groups of fossils, animals and plants, there- 

 fore, may be considered together. The beginner may gather speci- 

 mens of importance, and even after a century of collecting many 

 new fossils of scientific interest can be discovered. Indeed, finding 

 the good new things is often the fortune of the amateur and 

 beginner. 



Although fossils generally have little money value they do 

 have scientific and economic importance in the information that 

 they furnish on past life. They are links in the chain of evolution, 

 which, when it is completely forged, may yield biological laws 

 of inestimable value to mankind. From the economic viewpoint 

 fossils are important in mapping rock layers and in locating oil 



