. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. prepared skeleton. So fine,indeed, may have been the mud, and so quietfor the time being the waters of the ancientsea or lake, that not only have prints of bonesand leaves been found, but those of feathersand of the skin of some reptiles, and even ofsuch soft and delicate objects as jelly for these we should have little positiveknowledge of the outward appearance of thecreatures of the past, and to them we are oc-casionally indebted for the solution of somemoot point in their anatomy. The reader may pos
. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. prepared skeleton. So fine,indeed, may have been the mud, and so quietfor the time being the waters of the ancientsea or lake, that not only have prints of bonesand leaves been found, but those of feathersand of the skin of some reptiles, and even ofsuch soft and delicate objects as jelly for these we should have little positiveknowledge of the outward appearance of thecreatures of the past, and to them we are oc-casionally indebted for the solution of somemoot point in their anatomy. The reader may possibly wonder why it isthat fossils are not more abundant; why, of thevast majority of animals that have dwelt uponthe earth since it became fit for the habitationof hving beings, not a trace remains. This,too, when some objects — the tusks of the Mam-moth, for example — have been sufficiently wellpreserved to form staple articles of commerceat the present time, so that the carved handleof my ladys parasol may have formed part ofsome animal that flourished at the very dawn. -a fa s o s ^^ « fa •^ T-l ^ 01 bfi o j: c ■^ C/J s r; 0) o >^ «: ^ e r/- o tn*^ •v ;h ^ ^ s s 1^ r; « s ■~ 4^ G O -i 0) 4-> s o a C s; <; :?- c c cS S s )<, fac fa FOSSILS, AND HOW THEY ARE FORMED 5 of the human race, and been gazed upon byher grandfather a thousand times answer to this query is that, unless the con-ditions were such as to preserve at least thehard parts of any creature from immediate de-cay, there was small probability of its becom-ing fossilized. These conditions are that theobjects must be protected from the air, and,practically, the only way that this happens innature is by having them covered with water,or at least buried in wet ground. If an animal dies on dry land, where its boneslie exposed to the summers sun and rain andthe winters frost and snow, it does not takethese destructive agencies long to reduce thebones to powder; in the rare event of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectpaleontology, bookyea
