THE OLD WEEVILS 175 



In this way, the great lessons of the numismatical science 

 of metals could follow one another for many a day and 

 be constantly varied without leaving my near neighbour- 

 hood. But there is another science of numismatics, far 

 superior and less costly, which, with its medals, the fossils, 

 tells us the history of life. I speak of the numismatics 

 of stones. 



My very window-ledge, the confidant of bygone ages, 

 talks to me of a vanished world. It is, literally speaking, 

 an ossuary, each particle of which retains the imprint of 

 past lives. That block of stone has lived. Spines of 

 sea-urchins, teeth and vertebra of fish, broken pieces of 

 shells, shivers of madrepores form a pulp of dead exist- 

 ences. Examined ashlar by ashlar, my house would 

 resolve itself into a reliquary, a rag-fair of things that 

 were alive in the days of old. 



The rocky layer from which building-materials are 

 derived in these parts covers, with its mighty shell, the 

 greater portion of the neighbouring upland. Here the 

 quarry-man has dug for none knows how many centuries, 

 since the time when Agrippa hewed cyclopean flags to 

 form the stages and fagade of the Orange theatre. And 

 here, daily, the pick-axe uncovers curious fossils. The 

 most remarkable of these are teeth, wonderfully polished 

 in the heart of their rough veinstone, bright with enamel 

 as though still in a fresh state. Some of them are most 

 formidable, triangular, finely jagged at the edges, almost 

 as large as one's hand. What an insatiable abyss, a jaw 

 armed with such a set of teeth in manifold rows, placed 

 stepwise almost to the back of the gullet ; what mouth- 

 fuls, snapped up and lacerated by those serrate shears ! 

 You are seized with a shiver merely at the imaginary 

 reconstruction of that awful implement of destruction ! 



