Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
October 1766
Primary Source Reference:
"Catalogue raisonné des morceaux d'Histoire Naturelle que j'ai l'honneur d'envoyer ci-joint à Monsieur du Simitierre," Du Simitière Scraps, Library Company of Philadelphia, no. 50, p. 2
Additional Source Text:
"Je ent décidé que ce Sont les vertebres d'un Zoophite donc on enyoit (?) l'exemplaire marin dans le Cabinet de feue Madame de Boisjourdain à Paris, et que M. Godard de l'Ac. des Sciences a décrit Sous le nom de Palmier marin. Il y a apparence que les Entroques cilindriques appartiement d'un Zoophite de la même espece."
Trans.: I decided that these are the vertebrae of a zoophite, a marine example of which can be seen in the cabinet of the late Madame du Boisjourdain in Paris, and that M. Godard of the Academy of Sciences has described as a marine palm. From their appearance the cylindrical entrichites belong to a zoophite of the same species.==
Notes:
An entrochite is a fossil joint of a crinoid stem.
The donor was a man named Frey, of Basel, Switzerland. He may have met Du Simitière during miltary campaigns in Flanders. The men corresponded and exchanged natural history specimens in 1765 and 1766. Frey's covering letter for his shipment of fifty fossils and other natural history specimens was dated at Basel, 1 Oct 1766. Du Simitière Papers, Library Company of Philadelphia.
