If such
persons will refer to works which treat of petrifaction in all
their various kinds of transformation and in all the thousand
genera and species of fossil organisms, they will find that
although bones, shells, and the hard parts of animals, changed to
stone, yet preserving their original outlines, are of constant
occurrence, yet there is not a single instance on record of fossil
flesh; of the fat, muscle or sinew of man or beast changed into
stone or into any substance resembling stone. To a person
acquainted with the nature of petrifaction, the slow substitution
of mineral for animal matter, particle by particle, the reason
why humor of other flesh does not undergo the same change will be
apparent. This is truly not entirely in accordance with popular
belief, nor with the ever-recurring stories in our public journals.
"A fish nearly a foot long, petrified to solid stone" has lately
been cited in your columns as another instance of the petrifactions
of the Onondaga Valley. I visited this yesterday at the Museum
of the Onondaga Historical Society, at Syracuse, and found (what
I had before surely surmised,) a simple, short, club-like fragment
of limestone, worn by running water to a form like a little fish.
"This it was and nothing more."
It is proposed--and very properly--that this Onondaga relic should
be submitted to the examination of Professor Hall, Agassiz, Leidz,
or some other of our geologists known to fame and infallible experts
in these matters.
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