Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FOS'SIL, n.

A substance dug from the earth, or penetrated with earthy or metallic particles. Fossils are native or extraneous. Native fossils are minerals, properly so called, as earths, salts, combustibles and metallic bodies. Extraneous fossils are bodies of vegetable or animal origin, accidentally buried in the earth, as plants, shells, bones and other substances, many of which are petrified. Encyc.