

PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS; 



ILLUSTRATED BY 



A VISIT TO THE GALLERY OF ORGANIC REMAINS IN THE 

 BBITISH MUSEUM. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A DISTINGUISHED Essayist has eloquently and truthfully re- 

 marked, that " everything in nature is engaged in writing its 

 own history : the planet and the pebble are attended by their 

 shadows, the rolling rock leaves its furrows on the mountain 

 side, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its bones in 

 the stratum, the fern and the leaf inscribe their modest epitaphs 

 on the coal, the falling drop sculptures its story on the sand 

 and on the stone, not a footstep on the snow or on the 

 ground, but traces in characters more or less enduring the 

 record of its progress." 1 On the correct interpretation of 

 these autobiographies, inscribed on the rocks and strata by the 

 countless myriads of beings which have successively inhabited 

 the earth, through periods of incalculable antiquity and dura- 

 tion, and whose races are now extinct, is based that most 

 interesting department of natural history which has recently 

 acquired the rank of a distinct branch of modern science, 

 under the title of PALEONTOLOGY. 2 



As the remains of animals and plants imbedded in the earth 

 are found in different states of preservation, and more or less 



1 Emerson's Essays. JBohns Edition. 



2 From three Greek words, signifying a discourse on ancient beingg. 



B 



i* 



