OF A FORMER WORLD. 53 



A GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION 



TO 



TILGATE FOREST, A.D. 2000. 



BY THOMAS HOOD, ESQ., WITH EMENDATIONS AND ADDITIONS, 

 BY AN ANTIQUARIAN. 



TIME has been called the test of truth, and some old 

 verities have made him testy enough. Scores of ancient 

 authorities has he exploded like Rupert ? s drops, by a blow 

 upon their tails : but at the same time he has bleached 

 many black-looking stories into white ones, and turned 

 some tremendous bouncers into what the French call ac- 

 complished facts. Look at the Magatherium, which a 

 century ago even credulity would have scouted ! The 

 headstrong fiction which Mrs. Malaprop treated as a mere 

 allegory on the banks of the Nile, is now 4he Iguanodon / 

 To venture a prophecy, there are more such prodigies to 

 come true. 



Suppose it a fine morning Anno Domini 2000, and 

 the royal geologists, with Von Hammer at their head 

 pioneers, excavators, borers, trappists, greywackers, carbo- 

 nari, field-sparrers, and what not, are marching to have a 

 grand field-day in Tilgate Forest. A good cover has been 

 marked out for a find. Well ! to work they go ; hammer 

 and tongs, banging, splitting, digging, shoveling, puffing 

 like a smith's bellows hot as his forge dusty as millers 

 muddy as eels what with sandstone and gritstone, 

 and pudding-stone, blue clay and brown, marl and bog- 



