Fossils, 280 Million Years Dead, Grimace Up at Leverett Bathers

Leverett House has fossils in its plumbing and they're 280 million years old, the Hutch's Civic Improvement Society reported last night.

The Society said it had found "scores of Middle Mississippian clams and corals" in the limestone walls of the House's showers. It added that it had checked the find with Marland P. Billings '23, professor of Geology.

"They're fossils all right," Billings told the CRIMSON last night, estimating that they died about 280 million years ago.

Harrison L. Blair '51, a geology major and a member of the Leverett group, said he had first noticed the animals Monday. "I was taking a shower," said Blair, "and I was singing 'Won't You Take Me Home Again, Kathleen.'

"All of the sudden there was this Leperditia Carbonaria leering up at me from under the soap-dish."

Blair subsequently made out a Ceraptopea Agglomerata and several Spirifer Lateralis Delicatus Subcardiiformis, he said. This placed the shower in the Meramecian stage of the Mississippian period.

The Society's release also pointed out that the walls were of Salem limestone from Indiana, that they evidenced, a rare geologic formation called "styolitcs," and that the ancient fossils were evident throughout the showers of Leverett.

Its spokesman, William V. H. Mason '51, made just one comment last night upon the discovery. "Leverett House students," Mason said, "have a long history of cleanliness."