Egyptian Sea Urchin Fossils

Echinoderm fossils found in Egypt and now on display at the Natural History Museum in Paris, France. This first fossil image is of the Lutetiaster cavernosus from the Lower Eocene Period.

This second picture is of the Lower Eocene Period sea urchin, Megaoneustes grandis found in Egypt.

Favosites Corals - France

Favosites (Lamarck, 1816) corals on display at the Natural History Museum in Paris, France.

This first fossil picture is of a Devonian Period colonial coral called Favosites goldfussi (Lecompte, 1939).

This second coral is Favosites gothlandica (Lamarck, 1816) from the Silurian Period.

The Chambered Nautilus

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,–
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,–
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 

                                                                 - Oliver Wendell Holmes 


Thanks to Kenny for letting me photograph is ammonite fossil for this post.