198 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
Euts" (which are always completely petrified) are found petrified stems 
of palm-trees, bamboos, and poplar-trees. 
These palm -nuts, bamboos, and poplar-like trees are sometimes 
found pierced in all directions by a species of Teredo, which has left its 
worm-shaped shells in the petrified wood. Sometimes large clusters of 
the calcareous tubes of this mollusc arc found covering, or buried in, 
the stem of a poplar or palm-tree ; sometimes again they show them- 
selves in compact masses, where only a slight vestige of a tree-stem 
remains discernable ; in this case the wood has been so thoroughly 
tunnelled, that hardly any of it remains. 
The fossil* of which I speak belongs to that tribe of worm-shaped 
mollusca so much dreaded by shipowners before the copper-sheathing 
of vessels was imagined. The animals of this genus lay their eggs 
upon the surface of submerged ^vood ; the young Teredo, as soon as it 
is excluded, begins to work its way inward, and continues to proceed to 
a greater depth as it grows larger. Its mode of operating, both curious 
and wonderful, is described in works on Zoology ; its tunnelling ap- 
paratus exceeds everything man's genius has yet brought to bear in 
making his tunnels. The particular species to which I allude as being 
found in the fossil-trees of the Schaerbeek sand, is the Teredo corniformis 
of Lamack.f The existing Teredo makes the same havoc amongst 
the cocoa-nuts and palm-stems which float at the present time in the 
tropical seas, that its predecessors made thousands of centuries ago, 
when flourishing amidst the waters that deposited the middle Eocene 
beds of Brussels. 
Our readers have doubtlessly heard of the marvellous property pos- 
sessed by musk of retaining its odour for a long period of time — months, 
nay, years, may elapse, and the musk is as odoi'iferous as ever. But 
can any odour be retained for 100,000 years or more? My fossil 
Teredos answer this question in the afiirmative ! "When these fossils are 
fresh from the strata in which they lie, they have a strong smell of the 
sea ; so strong, indeed, in some specimens that I could hardly believe 
it possible. The odour of the sea is, however, very characteristic, and 
not easily mistaken or forgotten ; it has been remai'ked in very early 
* See Forbes' and Hanley's " British Molluscs " for a good account of the 
Teredo. — Ed. Geologist. 
t In the Province of Brabant, we have two or three other fossil species of the 
same genus. — T.L.P. 
