VIII 



READING THE RIDDLES OF THE ROCKS 



11 And the first Morning of Creation wrote 

 What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read." 



It is quite possible that the reader may wish to know 

 something of the manner in which the specimens 

 described in these pages have been gathered, how we 

 acquire our knowledge of Brontosaurus, or any of the 

 many other "sauruses," and how their restorations 

 have been made. 



There was a time, not so very long ago, when fossils 

 were looked upon as mere sports of Nature, and little 

 attention paid to them; later their true nature was 

 recognized, though they were merely gathered hap- 

 hazard as occasion might offer. But now, and for many 

 years past, the fossil-bearing rocks of many parts of the 

 world have been systematically worked, and from the 

 material thus obtained we have acquired a great deal of 

 information regarding the inhabitants of the ancient 

 world. This is particularly true of our own western 

 country, where a vast amount of collecting has been 

 done, although very much remains to be done in the 

 matter of perfecting this knowledge, and hosts of new 

 animals remain to be discovered. For this information 

 we are almost as much indebted to the collector who has 

 gathered the needed material, and the preparator whose 

 patience and skill have made it available for study, 

 as to the palaeontologist who has interpreted the 

 meaning of the bones. 



To collect successfully demands not only a knowl- 

 edge of the rocks in which fossils occur and of the 

 localities where they are best exposed to view, but an 

 eye quick to detect a piece of bone protruding from a 



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