Art. XII. Observations on some Species of Zoophytes. Shells, &c. principally Fossil, by Thomas Say.
If the following descriptions and notices of some of the animal productions of our country, chiefly fossil, and of which some are but little known, should be found of sufficient interest to occupy a place in the Journal of Science, they are very much at your service for that work.
The greater portion of them are extracted, with some modification, from an essay which I read about three years ago, to the Academy of Natural Sciences, without any intention at the time of giving publicity to them. But the rapid diffusion of a taste for geological research, seems to require corresponding exertions on the part of those who have attended to fossil remains, inasmuch as geology, in order to be eminently furnished with every advantage that may tend to the developement of many important results, must be in part founded on a knowledge of the different genera and species of reliquiæ, which the various accessible strata of the earth present. The accessory value of this species of knowledge, is now duly estimated in Europe, as affording the most obvious means of estimating, with the greatest approximation to truth, the comparative antiquity of formations, and of strata, as well as of identifying those with each other which are in their nature similar.
Certainly very little is yet known about the fossils of North America, and very little can be known accurately, until we shall have it in our power to compare them with approved detailed descriptions, plates, or specimens of those of Europe; which have been made known to the world by the indefatigable industry, and scientific research of Lamarck and other naturalists.
America is rich in fossils. In many districts of the United States, vast beds of fossil shells, zoophytes, &c. are deposited, which, for the most part, are concealed from the inquiring eye, offering superficially a mere confused mass of mutilated fragments. These rich repositories must finally be exposed to view, by the onward pace of improvement, and the more interior strata will be unveiled by some fortunate profound excavations, the result of enterprise in the pursuit of gain. The very surface of the country in many regions, is almost overspread with the abundance of casts, or redintigrate fossils, many of which are apparently specifically anomalous, and some generically so. The correct, and only useful mode in which the investigation of our fossils can be conducted, is attended with some difficulty and labour.
The task presumes the knowledge, not only of fossils in all their different states, from the apparently unchanged specimen, to the fragment or section of a cast uninsulably imbedded in its rocky matrix, but it also requires an adequate acquaintance with recent specimens, or those of which the inhabitants are not yet struck from the list of animated beings, in other words those of the present, as well as those of the former world.
Due advantage being taken of the many opportunities which are from time to time offered to us, of obtaining knowledge in this department, will probably be the means of producing a list of American animal reliquiæ, coextensive with that of Europe at the present day. In the present state of the science, however, the correct naturalist will feel it a duty which he owes to his colaborators to proceed with the utmost caution, that he may not add unnecessarily to the already numerous species.
Genus Alveolites, Lam.