FISHES IN THE HARTZ. 125 
It sometimes happens that scarcely a single 
bone, or scale, has been removed from the place it 
occupied daring life ; this condition could not 
possibly have been retained, had the uncovered 
bodies of these animals been left, even for a few 
hours, exposed to putrefaction, and to the 
attacks of fishes and other smaller animals at the 
bottom of the sea.* 
Another celebrated deposit of fossil fishes is 
that of the cupriferous slate surrounding the 
Hartz. Many of the fishes of this slate at Mans- 
feldt, Eiseleben, &c. have a distorted attitude, 
which has often been assigned to writhing in the 
agonies of death. The true origin of this con- 
dition, is the unequal contraction of the muscular 
fibres, which causes fish and other animals to 
become stifi*, during a short interval between 
death and the flaccid state preceding decompo- 
sition. As these fossil fishes maintain the alti- 
tude of the rigid stage immediately succeeding 
death, it follows that they were buried before 
putrefaction had commenced, and apparently in 
the same bituminous mud, the influx of which 
had caused their destruction. The dissemina- 
tion of Copper and Bitumen through the slate 
* Although it appears from the preservation of these animals, 
that certain parts of the Lias were deposited rapidly, there are 
also proofs of the lapse of much time during the deposition of 
other parts of this formation. See Notes in future Chapters on 
Coprolites and fossil Lolig'o. 
