Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/236

 232 fossil ink, inasmuch as the latter is impregnated with carbonate of lime.

In a communication to the Geological Society, February 1829, I announced that these fossil ink-bags had been discovered in the Lias at Lyme Regis, in connection with horny bodies, resembling the pen of a recent Loligo.

These fossil pens are without any trace of nacre, and are composed of a thin, laminated, semi-transparent substance, resembling horn. Their state of preservation is such as to admit of a minute comparison of their internal structure with that of the pen of the recent Loligo; and leads to the same result which we have collected from the examination of so many other examples of fossil organic remains; namely, that although fossil species usually differ from their living representatives, still the same principles of construction have prevailed through every cognate genus, and often also through the entire families under which these genera are comprehended.

The petrified remains of fossil Loligo, therefore, add another link to the chain of argument which we are pursuing, and aid us in connecting successive, systems of creation which have followed each other upon our Planet, as parts of one grand and uniform Design. Thus the union of a bag of ink with an organ resembling a pen in the recent Loligo, is a peculiar and striking association of contrivances, affording compensation for the deficiency of an external shell, to an animal much exposed to destruction from its fellow tenants of the deep; we find a similar association of the same organs in the petrified remains of extinct species of the same family, that are preserved in the ancient marl and limestone strata of the Lias. Cuvier drew his figures of the recent Sepia with ink extracted from its own body. I have drawings of the remains of extinct species prepared also with their own ink; with this fossil ink I might record the fact, and explain the causes of its wonderful preservation. I might register the proofs of instantaneous death detected