142 THE IMPERFECTION OF 



the globe at any one era. The paleontologist, guiding 

 himself only by prominent details of this description, 

 would be like a child over a child's history of England, 

 to whom the fabric of the Constitution arid the Reforma- 

 tion of the Church seem matters obscure, and scarcely 

 worthy of notice, while Alfred burning the, cakes, and 

 Henry VIII in his well-known character of Bluebeard, 

 stand out in bold relief. 



No one will doubt, that within the last ten years tens 

 of thousands of the common white butterfly have dis- 

 ported themselves in England, yet a man might easily 

 starve if he were allowed no food till he had found some 

 of their fossil remains. The dodo has not long been 

 extinct, but nevertheless fossil dodos are extremely rare. 

 It may be thought that the date of extinction has little 

 to do with the matter, and that each relic when enshrined 

 in the rock, may claim to be by a sort of indelible cha- 

 racter ' once a fossil and always a fossil.' This, however, 

 is in reality far from its true condition. Let a creature's 

 remains escape being devoured, or burnt, or trampled to 

 pieces, or being dissolved by the rain, or crumbled into 

 dust by rolling waves and mud and stones gathered 

 upon them, their perils are not yet over. Even in the 

 grasp of the hard rock, the fossil may be horribly dis- 

 torted by pressure, split asunder by cleavage, boiled and 

 baked and crystallized, till none of its features remain 

 what they were, or till the very fact of its presence 

 becomes only the question of a dim surmise. The rude 

 jolt of an earthquake, that splits asunder a mountain, 

 may sometimes be tender over a butterfly's wing ; but 



