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I.—On the Exhumation and Development of a large Reptile (Omosaurus Armatus, Owen), from the Kimmeridge Clay, Swindon, Wilts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

William Davies
William Davies
Affiliation:
British Museum.
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Extract

Comparatively few of the many persons who visit our larger Museums, and stop to examine the fossils exhibited in the cases, have any idea of the time, labour, care, and mechanical skill which many of them require ere they are ready for the palæontologist to interpret and describe, the artist to delineate, or made sufficiently intelligible for public exhibition. The first operation, and one requiring considerable care, is the exhumation of the fossil remains from the stratum of gravel or clay, or from the siliceous or calcareous rocks of various degrees of hardness, in which they may have been imbedded and preserved. Then the hardening of the bones—for these remarks apply more especially to the remains of the larger Vertebrata—which are generally found much broken, and, unless thoroughly mineralized, in a more or less friable and brittle condition. Next there is the fitting and cementing together of the pieces, which are frequently numerous, and of such as have been imbedded in a rocky matrix, the careful development by hammer and chisel from their incasement of stone: all of which operations necessarily involve a large amount of skilled labour.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 3 , Issue 5 , May 1876 , pp. 193 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1876

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References

page 193 note 1 See Athenœum, April 2nd, 1870.

page 193 note 2 In the Palæontographical Society's volume for 1875. Monograph of a Fossil Dinosaur (Omosaurus armatus, Owen), from the Kimmeridge Clay, pp. 45–93, plates xi.-xxii.

page 196 note 1 The surfaces of these cracks were completely covered with a felting of the rootlets of plants, which had penetrated through some eight or nine feet of compact clay to this nodule, and had long fed upon and derived nourishment from the decayed bones of the old monster within it. At least I assumed this much from the fact, that I had all the other nodules broken up to see if they contained any bones, and although they were much cracked, in none were there any traces of rootlets; nor did I find in one of them any organic remain which could have served as a nucleus of concretion. The form of each was elliptical, more or less elongated, and they were large, measuring several feet in their long diameter, and were traversed by veins of crystalline calcite, having also large cavities and fissures lined with crystals of the same mineral. The nucleus of all these nodules of septaria was probably organic, but may have consisted of more perishable organisms than bones, and so have been slowly dissolved and removed, leaving the cavities lined with spar to mark their former presence.