416 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



the whole of our knowledge of the subject, as far as we have the power 

 to do so, we shall be able to separate facts from fictions, and give a 

 solid basis for further investigations in the future study of ornitholo- 

 gical palaeontology. 



The first record of any allusion to petrified bird-remains is by 

 Albeetus Magnus, in 1495. His remarks evidently refer to those 

 incrustations by calcareous springs which w T e should never now dream 

 of associating with true fossils. Still, it is necessary for our purpose 

 to record these; that the true may be separated from the doubtful ; 

 while moreover these instances, if at all reliable, will serve the good 

 purpose of illustrating the conditions under which true fossil ornithic 

 relics may have been produced in the former geological ages of our 

 earth. Such records are not to be cast aside as useless, for more 

 reasons even than these. The following is the account given by this 

 naturalist Bishop of Eatisbon in his 8 Liber de Mineralibus,' pub- 

 lished at Venice : — 



" In our time there was discovered in the Danish Sea, near the 

 city of Lubeck, a big branch of a tree, whereon a nest of birds 

 was found, and small woodpeckers in the nest, all converted into 

 stone of a reddish colour ; the which cannot be otherwise explained 

 than that the tree, at the time when the nest was in it, was rooted up 

 by a storm, and the birds, drowned in the water, were afterwards, by 

 the effects of local circumstances, entirely converted into stone. 

 There is also in Grothia a spring, respecting which tradition states that 

 everything that is immersed in its water is converted into stone. 

 The Emperor Frederick, wishing to ascertain the truth of this, 

 ordered some sealed parchments to be put therein ; these having 

 been kept there for a few days, the half of the skin, and the seals 

 that is, the part submerged in the well, was changed into stone, the 

 other part still remaining as it was. It is also positively stated by 

 trustworthy people that the water-drops, which are dashed here and 

 there by the force of "the spring, are converted into as many stones as 

 there are drops ; the water itself however is not changed into stone, 

 but continues to flow. We witness also the formation of crystals 

 in the most elevated mountains perpetually covered with snow, 

 which phenomenon cannot be ascribed to any other cause than to the 

 virtue of the minerals which exist in those places. From all which 

 we see that it is very difficult to determine the place of generation 

 of stones, the more so as they are formed not from a single but from 

 many elements, and not under any special but under every climate ; 

 and what seems more marvellous, they are generated as well in the 

 bodies of animals as in the clouds, and their formation in all of these 

 places renders it scarcely possible to reduce them to the same com- 

 mon matter. But as we cannot doubt that for a body of a compound 

 nature there must be a generative cause, so it must be thence in- 

 ferred that every kind has its peculiar place of generation, outside 

 of which it decays and corrupts." 



" Aliquando namque tempore nostro in mari Danico juxta civitatem Lubi- 



