OUR 



COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS. 



CHAPTER I. 



FOSSIL SPONGES, ETC. 



THERE are few sciences more dependent on others 

 than Geology. Certainly there is none which sends 

 the young student so eagerly to other sciences for 

 assistance. The fossils he meets with in the rocks are 

 far more abundant than he imagined before he began 

 to study geology. Indeed, the young geologist, when 

 his eyes are first opened, is astonished at the abundance 

 of fossil remains within the immediate neighbourhood 

 of his home, unless the latter happen to be on the 

 granite or metamorphic rocks. He wonders how it is 

 he never noticed them before. Fragments, or whole 

 specimens of fossils, animal and vegetable, are con- 

 stantly turning up before his eager and enthusiastic 

 eyes, either in their parent rocks, or in the boulder 

 clays which have been formed out of them. The 

 very rocks of the hills and mountains seem to be 



