186 THE GEOLOGIST. 



the beds, while myriads of little circular hollows remain, — the imprints 

 of primeval showers. Strange that such fleeting incidents should be 

 the most ancient records of the world, and stranger still that tracks of 

 the soft worms and sea-weeds of the primeval shores should be the first 

 organic fossils. Two holes in the sands upon our shores mark to the 

 fisherman's eye the habitation of the lob-worm. On the wave-marked 

 surfaces of these primitive shales, hundreds of such worm-burrows 

 are crowded together in the greatest profusion. Some are small, 

 others large, and in pairs, indicating the entrances and the outlets, as 

 in those now living on our coasts. Sometimes the burrow-holes, oblite- 

 rated by the rasping action of the waves on the flat shores, have been 

 preserved in the hollows of the ripple-marks, or the furrows of the 

 runnels, which during the recess of the tides had worked their pigmy 

 gorges in the sand. 



As the breath of the primeval winds passed over the primeval 

 shores, it ruffled gently up the fine sandy mud, which, hardening in 

 the sun or drying in the wind when the waters receded, was, on their 

 return, covered up by a coating of fine silt. Each succeeding tide 

 added layer to layer, and thus, by the gentle and successive deposit of 

 films of mud, the records of the most evanescent meteorological 

 phenomena have been retained and preserved. 



Thus have been preserved the ripple-marks ; and from them, more- 

 over, we learn the direction and force of the wind that formed them. 

 The particles of matter moved by its power would travel up the 

 longest incline of the ripple-mound, and fall down by its own 

 momentum on the steepest slope ; and, as on our present shores, it 

 will be seen that the general trend of the ripple-mounds and -furrows 

 is at right angles to the point from whence the wind blows ; by the 

 converse of the rule, a straight line drawn at right angles to the trend 

 of the fossil ripple-marks must point to the quarter whence the 

 breeze which formed it issued. 



In the same manner, by successive covering by pellicles of fresh 

 mud, have the sun-cracks, the rain-drops, and the worm-holes been 

 preserved. 



In the specimen figured in Plate VII. the rain- drops were much 



