THK NAUTILUS. 



way to explore a city is to get on a street car and ride until you are 

 told to get off, and then try another line in like manner. 



Acting on this principle I hailed an electric car and was soon 

 hurrying along the streets, up one hill and down another, and then 

 over level stretches till I arrived at the " Burnett Woods" park. I 

 did not need to be told to get off here, for the condition of things 

 was evident, and this was, without doubt, the best place to spend 

 the hot hours of mid-day. I was delighted with the place at once. 

 What grand old trees were there, beeches and oaks and walnuts, 

 majestic specimens with huge trunks and great spreading limbs. 



Strolling across the little hills and valleys which make up the 

 park, I came at last to a huge excavation where a new street was 

 being cut out and an old one widened. A gang of prisoners, under 

 the eye of armed guards, were working there in the hot sun. Snmr 

 were shoveling away the loose soil, others were breaking up hard 

 strata with their picks and bars, while still others were down to bed- 

 rock, and were drilling holes for blasting. 



The rock looked interesting, and I drew near to a cliff which had 

 been partly carried away, and was delighted to find that the rock 

 was full of fossils. In some places it was literally made up of shells 

 and corals, and, so perfectly were they preserved, that you might 

 trace every mark of sculpture on the shell, and observe its outline 

 as perfectly as if it had just been brought up alive from the ocean. 



Most of the shells were those of brachiopods, a class of mollusks 

 that now exist but sparingly, though in ancient times they must 

 have been as thick as the leaves of a forest. 



How I longed for increased facilities for transportation on that 

 July day. I wanted to take away at least a barrel of the fine >]H i-i- 

 mens! They lay all around me. and it almost broke my heart to 

 leave some fine pieces of stone studded over with those choice relics, 

 lint when I lifted one of those pieces and found that it weighed 

 many pounds, I was reluctantly compelled to carefully put it down 

 and content myself with a few fragments that were not too large for 

 my coat pockets. One of these fragments is before me as I write. 



What a story these old relics tell to one who is able to interpret 

 their language. How many ages have passed away since each pair 

 of these shells contained a living occupant, a creature without gills, 

 indeed, but supplied with a pair of feathery arms which it stretched 

 out and waved in the warm waters of the Silurian sea. When its 

 little life was over, the shell sank down in the mud and was quickly 

 filled and covered with the soft ooze. 



