How the History of the Past Is Head 



even when not armed with plates and spines of 

 bone ; and from these we may learn much as 

 to the covering of these bygone animals. 



There is still another class of impressions 

 which furnishes assistance in reading the his- 

 tory of the past, and these are footprints. As 

 children we may have delighted in tales of 

 hunters tracking their game through the for- 

 est, or of Indians following the faint trail of 

 fleeing enemies ; while still more recently we 

 may have read with equal interest Mr. Seton- 

 Thompson's * stories, and followed the tracks 

 of Wahb or Molly along the margin of the 

 page. In much the same manner the paleon- 

 tologist patiently follows the trails of long- 

 vanished animals that ages ago passed over the 

 sands of Time and out of existence. For, as 

 the animals of to-day leave their footmarks 

 beside the pond in the meadow, on the sands 

 of the seashore, or along the margin of the 

 river, just so the creatures of the past left their 

 imprints on the sand or in the mud, to harden 

 into stone and bear an indelible record of the 



* Now Seton. 

 13 



