1 6 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



I was carried away at this time by the thoughts 

 that had been surging through the hearts of men 

 since Darwin bade them turn to nature for the 

 answers to their problems concerning the plants and 

 animals of this earth. 



How often in imagination I have rolled back the 

 years and pictured central Kansas, now raised two 

 thousand feet above sea level, as a group of islands 

 scattered about in a semi-tropical sea! There are 

 no frosts and few insect pests to mar the foliage of 

 the great forests that grow along its shores, and the 

 ripe leaves fall gently into the sand, to be covered 

 up by the incoming tide and to form impressions and 

 counterparts of themselves as perfect as if a Divine 

 hand had stamped them in yielding wax. 



Go back with me, dear reader, and see the treeless 

 plains of to-day covered with forests. Here rises 

 the stately column of a redwood; there a magnolia 

 opens its fragrant blossoms; and yonder stands a 

 fig tree. There is no human hand to gather its 

 luscious fruit, but we can imagine that the Creator 

 walked among the trees in the cool of the evening, 

 inhaling the incense wafted to Him as a thank- 

 offering for their being. All His works magnify 

 Him. The cinnamon sends forth its perfume beside 

 the sassafras ; linden and birch, sweet gum and per- 

 simmon, wild cherry and poplar mingle with each 

 other. The five-lobed sarsaparilla vine encircles the 



