20 INTRODUCTORY. 



creature loses itself in the contemplation of the works of 

 the Infinite Creator. 



The objects through which we arrive at a knowledge of 

 this extinct life are what are familiarly termed "Fossils" 

 the remains of plants and animals that were entombed in 

 the silt and sediment of former lakes and estuaries and seas, 

 and became petrified, or converted into stone, as these sedi- 

 ments solidified into rocky strata. As the autumnal leaf 

 drops into the stream and becomes imbedded in its mud 

 as the trees of the forest are borne down by the flooded 

 river and are ultimately entangled in the silt of its estuary 

 as the coral-reef and shell-bed are gradually increasing and 

 growing, as it were, into limestone before our eyes as the 

 skeletons of animals are drifted by the tide and fall to the 

 sea-bottom, or sink into rivers and marshes, and are thus 

 preserved from further decay so in all time past have 

 similar agencies been at w r ork : here preserving the broken 

 twig and the fallen forest, there the coral-reef and the 

 littoral shell-bed, and anon the remains of animals that 

 were borne by rivers from the land, or drifted by the waves 

 on the muddy sea-shore. These organisms so preserved 

 and petrified constitute the "fossils" of the geologist, who, 

 treating them apart from the rocks in which they are im- 

 bedded, has erected their study into a new science, under 

 the title of PALAEONTOLOGY, or the Study of Ancient Life. 

 Originally differing in nature, being in various degrees of 

 completeness at the time they were imbedded, and, above 

 all, being preserved in different kinds of rock-matter, as 

 shale, and coal, and limestone, and flint, and sandstone, 

 they are now found in different degrees of perfection and 

 distinctness. In some we find the original form and all the 

 parts entire, of others we have a mere hollow cast or mould, 

 of some a simple impression of the external surface, of 

 others we have but scattered traces, and these so obscure 



