The record-union., 1891-07-09

received sound drubbing from the old
man.
The following day he started north with
o load OF ore, and early in the evening
Mary left the house, saying that she was
gong to neighbor to return some trifle
she had borrowed the day before. She
was never again seen in life.
Her parents and the neighbors believed
that Whitesel had decoyed her away and
they followed him clear to Michigan
City. But they could find no trace of the
girl. Fearing to return to the neighbor-
hood, Whitesel sold his oxen and left the
country. He has never since been heard
from. 1t was known at the time that
Mary Ann had never reached the home
OF the neighbor for which she had started
In the light of events now known it is
probable that she meant to meet her
lover, and started across the low prairie
land to meet him near the creek road. She
must have fallen into one of the pits from
which the ore had been taken, drawing
down upon her as she fell an avalanche Of
the loose but terribly heavy soil. There
must have been water in the pit, as was
almost invariably the case, and this, with
the iron, must have produced solution
that tended to preserve and petrify the
body.
PROBABLY FELL INTO A PIT.
1t is well-known fact that the chem
IcalS thus Joined will tossiliZe either flesh
or wood, and that even vegetables and
fruit have been changed by it from their
natural condition to that Of light and po-
rous stone. In the rooms of the Histor-
Ical Society at the county seat are num-
Der OF apples, various blocks of wood
and even cabbage-stalk that have been
petrltled or f0SSilized in the old pits from
which iron was formerly taken. In the
case OF Miss Grier every portion of the
person seems perfectly preserved with
the exception of her eyes. For some rea-
son these organs seem to have been con-
structed Of matter which the chemicals
could not reach, and instead of having
been turned to stone they have entirely
disappeared. There is even Il discolora-
ton and enlargement Of one of the legs,
near the knee. 1t is thought perhaps this
limb was broken in the fall. The fossil
there is defective, is mere shell, and
seems ready to break by its own weight
But the puzzle is not so much that the
body of this young woman should have
turned to stone as that her flesh should in
so large q measure have retained it's
natural color. The portion of the prairie
in which the body was found is covered
with curious creeping vine, whose roots
penetrate to q remarkable depth, and
local physicians believe these may have
printed III the lime formation that took
the place Of human flesh the very pig
ments of color originally there. They
have taken specimens Of these roots and
the vines that grow from these and will
submit them TO Chicago experts for an
opinion.
The petrified body of Mary Ann Grier
lay for days in q darkened room at the
home of her brother, where it was visited
by hundreds Of persons, and was finally
inferred in the cemetery by the side of
the aged mother and near the headstone
which has been erected to the memory of
that brother who lost his life in battle.
Old men and women who knew Miss
Grier i'll life came from miles away to
walk past her in the silence of awe and
aEnaZement, to peer closely into the stony
face, and then to weep afresh for one they
mourned as worse than dead long years
ago.