24 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
the position in which a fossil is found tell its tale, and is not 
•without importance in the interpretation of the earth's histor)\ 
When from the fragments of the past creations you have discerned 
how to dispose the first faint lines of design, and by experience 
have so learned to fit them together as to comprehend or exhibit 
something of the beautiful tracery of those grand scenes in which 
Geology abounds, — you wiU have learned something yet more of 
the value of a fossil. 
On the shores of the sea the waves in reckless confusion cast 
their spoils, — floating shells and wood, and the dead carcases of 
animals are mixed with boulders and rocks, and like the beaches 
and strands of to-day are the conglomerates and littoral deposits 
of the past — fragmentary or massive, organic or mineral, all 
in disorder, and contrasting with the deeper waters, where the 
LiQN. 3. Sheila disposed by a cunent according to their formf. 
feeble currents roU gently along the smaller shells and relics and 
carefully dispose them, with almost the regularity of a cemetery, in 
one direction according to their forms. True, under the influences 
of motion and gravitation, as the magnet to the pole, do they all 
point to the spot to which the current trends. Again, if in any of 
the ancient rocks we find the shells disposed throughout the thick- 
ness of the beds, at all levels, and in their normal manner — for all 
living shells have a natural position in the mud or sand, their close 
proximity not necessarily indicating immediate succession of depo- 
sits, — what should we infer ? Shells do not rest indiscriminately on 
their hinges, nor their anterior nor posterior ends, but those with 
syphons project those organs upwards through the tubes of their 
burrows to inhale and exhale the aqueous fluid at once to them 
