in a general sense, denotes anything that is dug out of the earth. But the word is generally used among geologists and mineralogists to designate either simple or compound mineral bodies, such as metals, stones, salts, earths, and other minerals, or, more commonly, the petrified forms of plants and animals which occur in the several strata of the earth. Native fossils are minerals, properly so called, as earths, salts, metallic bodies, &c. Extraneous fossils are bodies of the animal or vegetable kingdoms, accidentally buried in the earth; such as plants, shells, corals, bones, and other substances, most of which exist in a petrified state.

See GEOLOGY.