THE HALL OF FOSSIL VERTEBRATES. 



Bl \\ D. Mai iiii.w, I'm 1) . 

 nt Curator, Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology. 



[ntroduction. 

 When we dig beneath the present surface of the ground we 

 sometimes find remains of ancient cities, dwellings, b men 



animals, buried many centuries ago under accumulatioi 

 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 

 Archaeology has arisen, and it deals with the 

 early history of mankind, with the evolution of civilization. 



Most of the animals of which the archaeologist finds traces art- 

 like those now living, although a few have become extinct. But 

 in those more ancient deposits which are now consolidated into 

 tc., indications of man are not found, and the 

 remain- of animals which they contain are Unlike any now living 

 — the more unlike as the roek is more ancient. These remains 

 ailed Fossils. They consist only of the hard parts of ani- 

 mals -lis. spines etc.). The soft ] tarts arc never pre- 

 md only very rarely is some trace of skin or hair, horns 

 or hoof- listinguished. As in the course of ages the mud 

 or sand in which they are buried changes to roek. so little by 

 littl* have been changed into a brittle, stony material, 

 while retaining their outward form and usually th< .liar 

 mud and claw in changii ttle 

 siderably, so also the fossils are flat t < 



much, in th< 

 hich has mud, that they 



rather a picl bas-relief than the original f< >rm of the animal. 



history of the world of life 

 during the 1 



nt history and evolution of the animal king- 

 I 



3 



