112 FOSSILS THEIR NATURE AND ARRANGEMENT. 



excited to enthusiasm in the search of its organic memorials. 

 Their study is, in fact, a kind of archaeology an antiqua- 

 rianism like that which attaches to ruins and burial- 

 mounds, but of a broader and more marvellous description. 

 To the older geologists their occurrence was a riddle, and 

 few considered them as other than mere accidents or lusus 

 natures ; but to the modern geologist they are replete with 

 information of the world's past, revealing to him the kind 

 of life that peopled its lands and waters during the succes- 

 sive stages of its history, and, by inference, the geographical 

 conditions under which they nourished and declined. The 

 recognition of their nature and importance has thrown a 

 new and higher interest round geology; and where the 

 study of mere rocks and minerals formerly shed an uncer- 

 tain glimmer, the science of fossils has cast the light of 

 sure and satisfactory information. This science of fossils, 

 or Palceontology, as it is technically termed (Gr. palaios, 

 ancient; onta, beings; and logos, discourse or reasoning), is 

 now, indeed, one of the main sections of geology; for if 

 geology be world-history, that history can never be written 

 without a knowledge of the plants and animals that have 

 successively peopled the earth, as well as of the external 

 conditions which the nature of these plants and animals 

 alone can indicate. It is necessary, then, that the student 

 of popular geology should know what fossils really are, the 

 various states in which they occur, and the manner in 

 which they can be arranged according to the classifications 

 of the botanist and geologist. To these subjects we devote 

 the present Sketch, premising that Palaeontology may be 

 technically subdivided into Palceophytology, or the science 

 of fossil plants, and Palceozoology, or the science of fossil 

 animals ; though, for all ordinary purposes, the general 

 term is sufficiently comprehensive and intelligible. 



Like other things in the history of the earth, the nature 



