116 GEOLOGY or THE BRISTOL COALFIELD. 



of animal substance : all is entirely mineral. 1 hat these animals 

 dipcl and became entombed in or near the places in which they 

 are found is evident from their numbers, natural position, and 

 growth. Generation after generation, in all stages of size and 

 age, from the youngest to the adult, may often be noticed in 

 juxtaposition. Sometimes the remains of the last meal swallowed 

 by the animal are found, the digestion of which was suddenly 

 stopped by the rude hand of death. We have many beautiful 

 examples in our Museum. So abruptly must the existence of 

 these family groups have been terminated by some change of 

 season, or violent storm, or change of level, that one can hardly 

 help fancying that some of the old mythological fables that were 

 taught us in our school-boy days must here have taken place, and 

 that the wand of some necromancer had suddenly changed an 

 animated world into stone. Stranger still does it seem when we 

 meet with the relics of tropical animals, such as the lion, 

 rhinoceros, tiger, and sloth; or the fronds of plants that we 

 now only know as living in warm countries. What has become 

 of the red deer whose antlers we find associated with the bones 

 of the wolf that probably hunted them down ? Did Bristol ever 

 rejoice in the warmth that now animates the ^ew Zealander or 

 Papuan? Did the shells and fishes that we now pick up at 

 Dundry, seven hundred feet above the sea level, once find a 

 home in the ocean ? Can all these seeming improbabilities be 

 explained? It is the object of the present paper to attempt, at 

 any rate, to do so, and to describe the changes that have taken 

 place which have culminated in our own beautiful and picturesque 

 neighbourhood. 



Thanks to our canals and railways, and the patient and 

 practical labours of such men as Smith, Lyell, Murchison, 

 Phillips, and many others, the knowledge of what has occurred 

 in the former history of our planet has been greatly advanced. 

 Probably the most useful geological finger-post was that erected 

 by William Smith, when residing in our immediate neighbour- 

 hood. AVhile superintending the excavation for the Midford 



