Note 82 — Chapter XIV

The following account of uncommon petrifactions from Georgia and Kentucky, we copy from the New York Medical Repository, vol. ii, page 415.

“Two rare extraneous fossils have been discovered, one in Georgia and the other in Kentucky. They have both been presented to Dr Mitchill. The former was brought by general David Meriwether, from a spring not very distant from the high shoals of the river Apalachy. It is rather above the size and thickness of a Spanish dollar, except that it is somewhat gibbous or convex on the upper side. From the centre proceed five bars, of four rays each, in the direction of radial lines, but connected by curves before they reach the circumference. On the under side are five grooves or creases, corresponding with the five radial bars above, one crease below to four rays above. At the centre beneath is a considerable concavity, corresponding with the convexity on the outside. There is reason to believe that it is an echinus, or sea-urchin of which the species are very numerous, some of them nearly flat, and many are found buried in the earth at great distances from the ocean.—From the place where this was found, it was computed there were enough, by estimation, to fill a bushel. And what was very remarkable, they were so nearly alike that they seemed to have been fashioned in the same mould, and have not been discovered in any other place.

“The latter of these rarities is from Kentucky. One of them had been received several years ago from Dr. S. Brown, of Lexington, now of Orleans; and several others since from Professor Woodhouse. They have a remote resemblance to a small acorn. At the larger end is a small projection resembling a broken foot-stock. At the smaller extremity are six indentations, or orifices, which may be imagined to be the decayed pistils or stigmata of a former blossom. And on the sides are figured fine sharp-pointed surfaces, having a similitude to the quinquepartite calyx of a plant. It may be doubted whether this is of animal or vegetable origin. It also may be reasonably supposed to be a species of echinus.

“Both the specimens are silicious and insoluble in acids.”—Cramer.