Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/160

 156 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. (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