28 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



a home on the earth. To many minds this branch of geology, 

 which is simply the natural history of the past, is the most 

 fascinating, with which view we fully sympathise. Putting aside 

 the study of fossil plants (which is a small branch of the subject), 

 we may say of Palaeontology, that it interprets to us the world's 

 " lost creations." In this branch of geology the records are not 

 so much the rocks themselves as the fossil skeletons they so 

 often contain. 



In some cases, as we shall presently show, the rocks contain 

 additional evidences of very considerable value, as throwing light 

 on the habits of the creatures, or on their natural surroundings ; 

 but bones, shells, and other hard parts of animals, are the founda- 

 tion on which the science of Palaeontology is founded. And here, 

 again, we find the same principle at work viz. that the past must 

 be read in the light of the present. However many ages ago it 

 it was, whether millions or billions of years ago, that these 

 primaeval inhabitants of the world enjoyed their existence, the 

 same unbroken laws of nature the visible expressions of a 

 Divine and All-powerful Will were at work, fulfilling His pur- 

 poses as now. Flesh and blood were then what they are now, 

 and fulfilled the same functions. Bones grew then as they grow 

 nowadays. To those bones were attached muscles which ex- 

 panded and contracted just as muscles do now. Wings were used 

 for flying, fins and paddles for swimming, legs for walking, teeth 

 for masticating food, just as they are now. In fact these primi- 

 tive inhabitants of the antique world, however different in bodily 

 shape from those we see around us now, lived under the same 

 universal laws of Physiology as we ourselves do. 



Palaeontology, then, is the science which, in the light of Com- 

 parative Anatomy and Physiology, rehabilitates the world's 

 ancient inhabitants, clothing their dry bones with flesh, and 



