Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
and its petrifications have not been noticed by the German geologists;
Professor Holzappel namelv writes about this in his letter of Sept. 21,
1903: »Ihre freundlichen Mitteilungen iiber Swedenborg haben mich
naturlich sehr interresiert, um so mehr als mir nichts davon bekannt
war, dass Swedenborg tiber den Lousberg und seine Fossilien nberhaupt
etwas geschrieben hat. Ich bezweifle auch, dass die geologische Litteratur
die Swedenborg’schen Mitteilungen iiberhaupt berticksichtigt hat. Mir
wenigstens ist nichts davon bekannt geworden».
But the most interesting of Swedenborg’s contributions in the
paleon-tological held is the illustration of a saurian skeleton furnished by him,
which is given in plate 2 (not II) in his great work» De Cupro», etc. It
had been found in 1733 in the Kupferschiefer at Gliicksborn, not
far from Altenstein in Sachsen-Meiningen, and was preserved by" the
Councillor of the Court and Mines Trier in Dresden. From
Swedenborg’s diary for 1733 it is seen that he visited Trier on August 30, »ubi
diversi generis mineras et musculos mihi videre contigerat, praeterea
etiam aliquod sceleton felis marinae cum suis articulis et pedibus in
lapide scissile», etc.
There is a letter from Swedenborg to Trier324, written at
Leipzig, January 5, 1734, in which Swedenborg thanks him for the
beautiful drawing of »felis marina» which had been sent to him, and he
furth ermore asks for permission to publish it in his work (Opera
philo-sophica et mineralia) and requests more particular information
concern-ing the find. In the text of this work he states (p. 168) concerning the
fossil in question: »repraesentat animal quoddam marinum, amphibium,
vel aliud, ex cauda augurari licet felis marinae quoddam genus fuisse».
His pleasure over the beautiful specimen is evident from the following
words: »est inter onmes, quas vidi lapidibus impressas formas piscium
et animalium exstantissima & integerrima». A reduced facsimile of
Swedenborg’s plate is reproduced liere, (Plate VI.), being one third of
the size of the original plate.
There has been much speculation as to what Swedenborg really
meant by »felis marina», and by a literal translation it has been
inter-preted to be monkey, »Meerkatze»! This may have been done because,
as Mr. A. Stroh has informed me, some copies of Swedenborg’s work
are accompanied by a folio page with printed directions for the binder,1
1 »Dem Buchbinder zur Nachricht hat man folgende Specification der Kuppfer
und Paginarum fur dienlich erachtet.»
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
