TIME SPENT (PALEONTOLOGY) 



479 



Milloii li. Wtid 



Dinosaur footprints in Connecticut. 



animals may be preserved, showing that the animal in question was 

 once a going concern. Just as rabbit tracks in the snow register 

 the fact that a rabbit has 

 passed that way, so the 

 many stone footprints 

 which Professor Hitch- 

 cock of Amherst College 

 originally cHscovered up 

 and down the Connecticut 

 Valley are dinosaur auto- 

 graphs, signed in the great 

 stone book, that record 

 who were once travelers 

 there. 



Particularly curious fos- 

 sils are the so-called copro- 

 lites, which are hardened 

 feces of animals. These, in some instances, by their twisted form, 

 give a hint as to the structure of the vanished soft parts of the 

 posterior part of the intestine, which were able to shape excreta in 

 such a fashion. Some coprolites, furthermore, even enable the 



paleontologist to deter- 

 mine the bill-of-fare of 

 an animal that lived 

 perhaps a million years 

 ago. 



Finally, coal and oil 

 deposits, wherever found 

 in nature, mark the place 

 and time of former vege- 

 tative life. 



In all these cases what 

 we call a fossil is a 

 truthful and undeniable 

 witness of the former 

 existence of a living thing. 

 They are not to be con- 

 fused with artifacts which 

 are structures fashioned 

 by the hand of man. 



:v<_' 



( '. .s. Geological .Surrey 



Folded beds of limestone on the south coast of 

 Alaska. 



