FOSSILS, AND HOW THEY ARE FORMED 5 
of the human race, and been gazed upon by 
her grandfather a thousand times removed. 
The answer to this query is that, unless the con- 
ditions were such as to preserve at least the 
hard parts of any creature from immediate de- 
cay, there was small probability of its becom- 
ing fossilized. These conditions are that the 
objects must be protected from the air, and, 
practically, the only way that this happens in 
nature is by having them covered with water, 
or at least buried in wet ground. 
If an animal dies on dry land, where its bones 
lie exposed to the summer’s sun and rain and 
the winter’s frost and snow, it does not take 
these destructive agencies long to reduce the 
bones to powder; in the rare event of a cli- 
mate devoid of rain, mere changes of temper- 
ature, by producing expansion and contraction, 
will sooner or later cause a bone to crack and 
crumble. | 
Usually, too, the work of the elements is 
aided by that of animals and plants. Every 
one has seen a dog make way with a pretty 
good-sized bone, and the Hyena has still greater 
capabilities in that line; and ever since verte- 
