Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1916 — Fossilized Bacteria. [ARTICLE]

Fossilized Bacteria.

Marvelous as were the discoveries of such prehistoric monsters as the mammoth, the mastodon and the stegosaurus, they are now eclipsed by recent Investigations which show the most minute microbes and bacteria in fossil form. The ancestors of our modern infectious disease germs and microbes have been found in fossils of the earliest life on earth Fossil bacteria have been discovered in very ancient limestones collected by Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian institution, in Gallatin county, Montana. The bacteria consist of individual cells and apparent chains of cells which correspond in their physical appearance with the cells of micrococci, a form of bacteria of today. The world has believed that bacteria were modern forms of life, but now* we are made to realise that they existed in the dawn of world history, many million years ago.