1 80 Popular Delusions in Natural History. [Sess. 



of the formation of rocks — of geological time divisible into 

 successive epochs characterised by different assemblages of 

 animals and plants which successively died out to be followed 

 by others — or indeed that land and water have ever changed 

 places. If they have heard of fossils at all, or if they have 

 even seen such things, they have as little knowledge as to 

 how they got into the stones as a certain eminent person is 

 said to have had as to how the apples got into a dumpling. 

 I rather think you will find that a very common idea is that 

 they have got pressed into the stones from the outside in a 

 way which no one, not even themselves, can understand. As 

 an instance of this, I remember that some years ago an 

 article upon Caithness was published in a London news- 

 paper, in which the writer takes the opportunity of mention- 

 ing the fossil fishes, which we all know are so abundant in 

 the Old Eed Sandstone beds of that county, and in doing so 

 he refers to the shoals of fishes which in former times fre- 

 quented the coasts of Caithness, and whose bones have " pene- 

 trated the rocks " ! ! Note the idea not only of the penetra- 

 tion of the rocks by the bones of the fishes, but also of there 

 being coasts of Caithness, as we now understand them, at the 

 time when the Old Eed Sandstone was being deposited under 

 water. Another delicious instance came to my knowledge of 

 the editor of a fishing paper who wanted some one to write 

 an article on " How to find Fossil Fishes," because the readers 

 of his paper had " exceptional facilities for getting at all parts 

 of a rocky stream," and that they might in fact " fish in a 

 double sense," — thereby clearly indicating that he imagined 

 that the fossil fish which his anglers were to find had been 

 inhabitants of the same stream, and had some way or other 

 got baked into the stones in their rocky beds ! 



In like manner the absolute lack of knowledge of geological 

 time, or of successive geological and palseontological epochs, 

 conduces to a general ignorance of the fact that fossil animals 

 and plants, excepting those of the most superficial formations, 

 belong to species, often to families and groups, which have 

 long disappeared from the ranks of living forms. How often, 

 when showing to friends a fossil fish from the now inconceiv- 

 ably remote Devonian or Carboniferous periods, have I been 

 assailed by the question, " And do you know what kind of 



