The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-12-12


tion Really Is.
One reads almost every week in the
newspapers of the finding of 'petrifed"
human body. Such thing never did and
never will exist. Nevertheless, so dense
is the popular ignorance of such matters,
and so ready the human mind to be de-
Iuded, that reports of this kind are COM
monty accepted as facts. 1t would be well
if they could be deprived of credibility for
all future time by The publication of few
truths on this subject.
In the first place petrtfaction" is not,
strictly speaking, transformation of the
original animal or plant into stone. It is
merely replacement of the organic tissue
by mineral substance. AS each particle
of the plant or animal decays and disap-
pears, Its place is taken, usually in water
or mud, by particle of mineral matter
deposited from the water which has held
it in suspension. Thus the perishable
original is changed into imperishahle
stone, preserving its form and even it's
structural appearance when cut into.
By such means have the skeletons of an
imals millions of years old been preserved
in the rocks Of the everlasting hills, so that
e1Cy k4idy DC 1CSOASVf OOOty d8 ullGy
were ages before man appeared On the
earth. But it is only the bones that are
in this way kept; never the flesh, because
water cannot percolate through it. In the
same way whole forests Of trees in the
Yellowstone region and elsewhere are
changed into agate and other forms of
stone, the hollow logs Of the forest prime
val being often found filed with beauti-
full crystals of quartz and amethyst.
The cliffs that border the eastern branch
of the Yellowstone river afford a view Of q
series of such forests buried on top of one
another. The lowermost level was erigi-
nally wooded plain, hundreds Of thou
sands of years ago. Volcanoes burst forth
in the neighborhood, and it was over
whelmed by their debris. On top the lat
ter fresh trees took root and grew, to be
in their turn buried by subsequent erup-
lions. This sort OF thing continued through
century after century, until 1000 feet of
accumulahons were heaped above the for
est at the bottom.
Beneath the hills thus formed water
flowed, as it does constantly through the
earth 3 crust. The buried trees gradually
decayed, and their decomposing substance
was replaced by mineral matter, trans
forming them into stone. Afterward the
Yellowstone river cut down through the
strata formed Of volcanic debris In the
manner described. For thousands and
thousands Of years the great stream plowed
out its bed, until today the latter Is
cut 1000 feet deep-a canyon walled In by
towering cliffs. And as one looks upward
at those cliffs the buried forests are plain
ly to be seen in the successive layers COM
posing them. They can be counted easily,
the reckoning carrying the observer back
to the very night Of time, when real drag
ons and chimeras dire walked ON the earth,
swan in the seas and few in the air.
Nearly all the trees which line these
wonderful cliffs are turned into agate
One can climb up and knock them off, as
they break readily into sections. Many
Of them, which wers hollow before they
were buried, are filed with beautiful crys-
tails of quartz and amethyst. Water, per
colating into such hollow trunks, brought
particles of silica, which formed them
selves into crystals, finally filing up the
cavities. 1t is in hollow parts of buried
trees that nearly all existing crystals of
amethyst and quartz were originally form
ed. They are treasures which were hid
den away by the hand of nature in old logs
and stumps. Amethyst of course Is merely
quartz crystal with q little coloring mat
ter from metallic oxides.
Much Of the agatized and jasperized
wood found In various parts OF the west
was thus transformed under water. There
is fossil forest Of such material at Los
Cerillos, N. NJ, and another at Chalcedo-
ny Park, A. T. It is largely used for or
namental purposes. The trees fell and
were submerged, becoming silicifed in the
manner already described. While this was
going on, spores Of fungi hoated into the
cracks in the trunks and branches, ger
minating and extending their threads of
mycelium through the decaying wood
These threads are still visible in the 'spet-
rified''-the word t'fossilized" is consid-
cred preferable - substance, ramifying
through the cells of the wood. The water
also brought salts of iron in solution, which
were secreted by the fungus and after
ward deposited by it, thus enriching the
coloration Of the fossilized structure.
Iron, being plentiful in many rocks and
readily soluble, often replaces organic sub
stances and forms fossils. In the depart
ment of prehistoric anthropology at the
Smithsonian institution is preserved hu-
man skull Of iron, which was dug out Of
a hillside NOT long ago Not only has iron
replaced the substance Of the bone, but
the brain cavity is flied with the metal,
so that the skull weighs many pounds
The hill in which its owner was buried
was rich in iron ore, Of course.
Shells, inclosed In the strata of hills,
are sometimes transformed into opal by
process OF fossilization, opal being merely
form of quartz. Petrifcations, properly
termed fossil remains, Of plants are read
lily distinguishable in beds of coal, so that
1t is easily determined from what sorts OF
giant ferns and other trees the coal was
originally formed. Among the most an
Gent of fossils are numerous insects,
which, despite the delicacy OF their struo
ture, have been preserved through millions
of years for the instruction Of modern
generation, the very fluff on the wings of
the primeval moth being plainly distin-
guishable.
Most of the bodies reported in the news
papers as found "petrified" are examples
OF phenomenon long familiar. They have
been transformed not into stone, but into
q substance called "adipocere, or grave
wax" This is a true soap, into which the
corpse OF a human being will ordinarily
l.