12 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



in this respect, and that certain aquatic animals have bones as light 

 and as delicate (delies) as many birds. As to this, which has the 

 beaks separated from the body, it is very easy to be deceived ; and we 

 know that the beaks of birds, as they were for a long time believed 

 to be, in grey amber, have been recognized as the beaks of a cuttle- 

 fish (seehe) or a calmar, since they have been better examined. 



"Bat eliminating all that authors have so assigned through height- 

 ened imagination, there remain some facts about which no legitimate 

 doubt is permissible, since the fine discovery that has been made of 

 which I have to render an account. On the 2nd November of the past 

 year (1781), M. Darcet made a Hthological journey to Montmartre, 

 and found in the hands of the workmen who worked at the plaster- 

 quarries (platrieres) a petrified bird, in the most beautiful conserva- 

 tion. We should not. perhaps, have had for a long time the com- 

 plete proof of the existence of ornitholites, if this savant had not been 

 that day at Montmartre, for the workmen destroy what they find, or 

 sell to the first comer ; and thus it is so much is lost to the progress 

 of Natural History. M. Darcet is engaged at this time in important 

 chemical labours, and has very kindly confided this petrifaction to 

 me, and requested me to describe it. 



" The cliff (butte) of Montmartre is elevated about 40 toises above 

 the level of the Seine at Paris ; the gypsum rock, of which it is chiefly 

 composed, is there arranged in beds more or less distinct, more or less 

 adherent one to another. We see at the line of their contact a band, 

 which seems to contain a slightly ferruginous matter. If we separate 

 these from each other, and observe their surfaces, we find them less 

 brilliant (brill antes) than the interior of the stone ; they are also of a 

 lighter tint of red. Powder is used in working the quarries and to 

 obtain the blocks, which are afterwards broken by blows of the 

 hammer ; it was in the interior of the stone, at more than 20 toises 

 from the summit, and between two adherent beds (deux couches qui 

 avoient entr'elles de l'adherence) that the bird in question was fouud. 

 The greatest part of its substance has followed the upper bed, and 

 one sees the rest with the imprint of the whole in the lower bed. It 

 is posed (pose) on its side ; one of its wrings extended, the other 

 folded (repliee) ; the head is turned in such a manner that we see one 

 eye, the under-part (dessous) of the beak and a part of the upper 

 (dessus). Its position (situation) is natural, and there is not any 

 transposition in the parts. It appears, then, that it has not been 

 embedded (enseveli) alive, and that it did not perish in a catastrophe 

 (dont ses ailes n'auroient pu le garantir), but that it fell at the 

 bottom of tranquil water, which deposited in course of time the beds 

 above it."* 



As yet, however, bird-remains had been but little collected, and we 

 find the celebrated Peter Camper, the discoverer of the famous Mo- 

 sasaurus, of Maestricht, in a letter printed in the " Philosophical 



* Further details from TCozier and the figure from his Plate will be given in the strati- 

 graphical considerations with the other gypsum fossils. 



