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. 3
Additional Source Text:
"Il ya parmi deux fragmens agatisés, Sciés, et polis."
Trans.: There are among them two agatized fragments, sawn and polished==
Notes:
Ammonites, or Cornua ammonis (horns of Ammon), called snake stones, or serpent stones, are fossils of an extinct group of cephalopods of the subclass Ammonoidea. If this fossil retained some irridescent properties of its nacre, it may have been described as having a metallic appearance, similar to the one pictured here.
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.
