THE HALL OF FOSSIL VERTEBRATES. 
By W. D. Marruew, Pu.D., 
Assistant Curator, Department of Vertebrate Palwontology. 
INTRODUCTION. 
WHEN we dig beneath the present surface of the ground we 
sometimes find remains of ancient cities, dwellings, bones of men 
and animals, buried many centuries ago under accumulations of 
debris, deposits of river mud or drifted sand. From these we 
learn many facts concerning the early history of mankind of 
which there is no written chronicle. From the study of these 
facts the science of Archzology has arisen, and it deals with the 
early history of mankind, with the evolution of civilization. 
Most of the animals of which the archzologist finds traces are 
like those now living, although a few have become extinct. But 
in those more ancient deposits which are now consolidated into 
clays, sandstones etc., indications of man are not found, and the 
remains of animals which they contain are unlike any now living 
—the more unlike as the rock is more ancient. These remains 
are called Fossils. They consist only of the hard parts of ani- 
mals (bones, shells, spines etc.). The soft parts are never pre- 
served, and only very rarely is some trace of skin or hair, horns 
or hoofs, to be distinguished. As in the course of ages the mud 
or sand in which they are buried changes to rock, so little by 
little the fossils have been changed into a brittle, stony material, 
while retaining their outward form and usually their peculiar 
structure. But as mud and clay, in changing into rock, settle 
down and contract considerably, so also the fossils are flattened 
out to a corresponding extent—sometimes so much, in the case 
of a rock which has once been a soft oozy mud, that they suggest 
rather a picture or a bas-relief than the original form of the animal. 
From fossils we can interpret the history of the world of life 
during the long ages before man appeared. The science which 
deals with the ancient history and evolution of the animal king- 
dom is Palzontology (za\duos, ancient, 6vra, living beings, 
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