the fossil worm-like bodies, so abundant in the lithographic slate of Solenhofen, and described by Count Münster in the Petrefacten of Goldfuss, under the name of Lumbricaria, are either the petrified intestines of fishes, or the contents of Qtheir intestines, still retaining the form of the tortuous tube in which they were lodged. To these remarkable fossils he has given the name of Cololites. (Pl. 15', is copied from one of a series that are engraved in Goldfuss, Petrefacten, Pl. 66.) He has also found similar tortuous petrifactions within the abdominal cavity of fossil fishes. belonging to several species of the genus Thrissops and Leptolepis, occupying the ordinary position of the intestines between the ribs.[1] (See Agassiz Poissons Fossiles, liv. 2, Appendix, p. 15.)
It is probable that to many persons inexperienced in anatomy, any kind of information on a subject so remote, and apparently so inaccessible, as the intestinal structure of an extinct reptile or fossil fish, may at first appear devoid of the smallest possible importance; but it assumes a character of high value, in the investigation of the proofs of creative
- ↑ As these Cololites are most frequently found insulated in the lithographic limestone, M. Agassiz has ingeniously explained this fact by observing the process of decomposition of dead fishes in the lakes of Switzerland. The dead fish floats on the surface with its belly upwards, until the abdomen is so distended with putrid gas, that it bursts: through the aperture thus formed the bowels come forth into the water, still adhering together in their natural state of convolution. This intestinal mass is soon torn from the body by the movement of the waves; the fish then sinks, and the bowels continue a long time floating on the water: if cast on shore, they remain many days upon the sand before they are completely decomposed. The small bowels only are thus detached from the body, the stomach and other viscera remain within it.
We owe this illustration of the nature of these fossil bodies, whose hitherto been inexplicable, to the author of a most important work on fossil fishes, now under publication at Neuchatel. His qualifications for so great and difficult a task are abundantly guarantied by the fact, that Cuvier, on seeing the progress he had made, at once placed at the disposal of Professor Agassiz the materials he had himself collected towards a similar work.
