Ill 



IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST 



" The weird palimpsest, old and vast, 

 Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past." 



The Rev. H. N. Hutchinson commences one 

 of his interesting books with Emerson's say- 

 ing, " that Everything in nature is engaged in 

 writing its own history;" and, as this remark 

 cannot be improved on, it may well stand at 

 the head of a chapter dealing with the foot- 

 prints that the creatures of yore left on the 

 sands of the sea-shore, the mud of a long- van- 

 ished lake bottom, or the shrunken bed of some 

 water- course. Not only have creatures that 

 walked left a record of their progress, but the 

 worms that burrowed in the sand, the shell-fish 

 that trailed over the mud when the tide was 

 low, the stranded crab as he scuttled back to 

 the sea each and all left some mark to tell 

 of their former presence. Even the rain that fell 



