1881.] An Address to Fossil Bones. 37 
AN ADDRESS TO THE FOSSIL BONES IN A PRIVATE 
MUSEUM. 
BY JAMES S. LIPPINCOTT. 
“And you have walked about—how strange a story !” 
In days gone by, a million years or so, 
When giant saurians were in all their glory 
In the dim twilight of the long ago! 
When Hadrosaurus reared his height stupendous, 
And Aquilunguine Lzlaps leaped tremendous! — 
Could ye but speak, what stories you could tell us! 
How on the oozy flats you floundered free ; 
Elasmosaur and all his scaly fellows 
That fished and paddled the Cretaceous sea, 
And Mosasaurus, how he showed his tushes 
Ages ere Moses boated ’mong the rushes! 
That “there were giants in those days” is certain, 
Not such as those by Scripture story told, 
Nor known to us till science raised the curtain, 
Their length and breadth and stature to unfold ; 
Monsters of flesh and bone and horny mail, 
And jaws and claws and ponderous length of tail. 
Oft have we queried, wherefore had ye birth, 
And wherefore sent into a world like this 
Ages ere perfect man appeared on earth? 
As told in chapter first of Genesis, 
Of which our Savans have not yet been able 
To show how much is fact, how much is fable! 
The “ dark idolator of chance” may learn 
A lesson pregnant from your gray remains, 
See proof of plans, deep-laid, he may not spurn, 
_ By Power Creative, through all time the same ; 
See glimpses of the slow evolving plan 
Developing the monad up to man. 
Then hail your advent to the light of day! 
A revelation of old time to this, 
Along the darkened past a brilliant ray 
Lighting an else unfathomable abyss! 
And hail to him whose skill your import can make plain, 
Can reconstruct the past and make it live again ! 
