The Placer herald., 1858-10-30
A City Saved by a Fossil.

Thomas Campbell, when asked for toast
in society of authors, gave the memory OF
Napoleon Bonaparte: significantly adding,
che once hung bookseller" On nearly
similar principle | would be disposed to
propose among geologist grateful bumper
in honor of the revolutionary army that be-
sieged Maestrcht. That city some seventy
or eighty years ago, had its Jealous naturalist
in the person of M. Hoffman, diligent exca-
vator in the quarries of St. Peters noun
tain long celebrated for its extraordinary
fossils. Geology, as science, had no exis-
istence at the time; but Hoffman was doing
in quiet way, all he could to give it be-
ginning; he was transferring, from the rock
to his cabinet, shells, and corals, and crusta-
cea, and the teeth and scales Of fishes, with
now and then the vertebre, and now and
then the lmb-bone, of a reptile. And he
honestly renumerated all the workmen he
employed, and did no manner Of harm to
any one, no one needed him. On one event
full morning, however, his friends, the quar-
riers, laid bare most extraordinary toAsil
the occipital plates of an enormous saurian,
with four and half feet long, bristling over
with teeth, like chevaar de .trise: and after
Hoffman, who had cot the block in which it
lay embedded cut out entire, and transfer
red to his house, had spent week after week
in painfully relieving it from the mass, all
Maestricht' began to speak Of it as something
really wonderful. There is a cathedral on
St. Peters mountan-the mountain itself is
church land; and the lazy canon awakened
by the general talk, laid claim to poor Hoff-
mans wonderful fossil as his property. He
WAS lord cf the manor; he said, and the
mountain, and all that it contained belonged
to him. Hoffman defended his fossil as best
he could in an expensive lawsuit; but the
Judges found the law against him; the huge
reptile head was declared to be treasure
trove" escheat to the lord of the manor, and
Hoffman, halfbroken hearted, with but his
labor and the lawyers bill for his pains, saw
it transferred by rude hands from its place
in his museum, to the residence of the grasp
inc churchman. The huge fossil had expert
enced the fate of DR.. Chalmers two hundred
churches. Hoffman was Il philosopher, how
ever and he continued to observe and collect
as before, but he never found such another
fossil; and at length, in the midst of his in
genious labors, the vital energies failed within
him and he broke down and died. The use
less canon lived on. The French Revolution
broke out; the Republican army invested
Maestricht; the batteries were opened, and
shot and shell fell thick on the devoted city.
But in one especial quarter there aghted
neither shot nor shell. All was safe around
the canon's house. Ordinary relics would
have availed him nothing in the circumstance
no not "the three kings of Cologne" bad
he possessed them, or the jaw bones Of the
"eeven thousand virgins" but there was
virtue in the jaw bones of the Mossaurus,
and safety in their neighborhood. The
French saodns like all the other sardns Of
Europe, had heard of Hofl'nan's fossil, and
the French artillery had been directed to
play wide of the place where it lay. Macs
tricht surrendered; the fossil was found Sc
creted in vault, and sent away to the jar
din des pldntes, at Paris, maugre the canon,
to delight there the heart of Cuver; and
the French, generously addressing themselves
to the heirs of Hoffman as its legitimate
owners, made over to them a considerable
sum of money as its price. They reversed
the finding Of the Maestiicht judges; and all,
save tie monks of St. Peters have acquesc-
ed in the justice of the decision.
Hugh Miller.