38 WHAT EVOLUTION IS 



3. FROM GEOLOGY 



The evidence on the evolutionary 

 problem to be drawn from geology 

 turns largely on the question of fos- 

 sils. A fossil is anything dug from 

 the earth. Specifically fossils are 

 bones, shells, or even delicate struc- 

 tures such as ferns and the like, that 

 have been more or less converted into 

 stone and have been exhumed from 

 their hiding places in the rocks. 



The ancients were acquainted with 

 fossils, but they regarded them in a 

 light very different from that in 

 which the modern naturalist looks 

 upon them. Fossils were believed by 

 the ancients to have had something 

 to do w^th nature's formative proc- 

 esses. These early observers were, 

 for the most part, believers in spon- 

 taneous generation. They accepted 



